Evolution of political thought

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THE EVOLUTION OF
POLITICAL THOUGHT

Also by C. Northcote Parkinson

Parkinson's Law
AND Other Studies in Administration

The

Evolution of

Political Thought

by
C. Northcote Parkinson

RAFFLES PROFESSOR OF HISTORY
UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY * BOSTON

uiV^

Copyright © 1958 by C. Northcote Parkinson

All rights reserved including the right to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-1 1710

SECOND PRINTING

CAMBRIDGE • MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

/

CONTENTS

Preface ........ 7

Introduction — Primitive Man . . . . 17

Part I
MONARCHY

T. Monarchy among Agricultural Peoples . . 28

II. Monarchy among Pastoral Peoples ... 39

III. The Implications of War ..... 45

IV. Monarchy and Nationalism .... 53
V. Monarchy justified by Divine Right . . 74

VI. Monarchy justified by Expedience ... 82

Part II
OLIGARCHY

VII. Feudalism ........ 92

VIII. Aristocracy 102

IX. Aristocracy justified in Theory . . .110

X. Theocracy ....... 121

XI. Theocracy justified in Theory .... 142

XII. The Theocracy of Communism . . . .151

6 CONTENTS

Part III
DEMOCRACY

XIII. The Origins of Democracy . . . .168

XIV. Democracy at Rome 181

XV. Democracy justified by Religion . . .188

XVI. Democracy justified by Reason . . .199

XVII. Democracy justified by Utility . . . 209

XVIII. Democracy carried to its Logical Conclusion 224

Part IV
DICTATORSHIP

XIX. Democracy in Decline ..... 238

XX. The Caudillos . . . . . . .251

XXI. Twentieth Century Dictatorship . . . 260

XXII. The Theory of Dictatorship . . . .271

XXIII. Dictatorship in Decay 285

XXIV. Bonapartism 297

Epilogue 305

Index 317

PREFACE

MOST universities offer courses of lectures in what is called the
History of Political Thought. The nature of these courses is
fairly reflected in the books compiled on this subject; books written
or edited by the lecturers and recommended without hesitation to
their pupils. While the titles catalogued are numerous and varied, the
books themselves are not dissimilar in content. Fluttering the pages
of any volume, chosen at random, the reader will not fail to glimpse
successively the names of Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Machiavelli,
Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Bentham and Mill. On adjacent shelves he
will find editions of the works from which the compiler has drawn —
More's Utopia, Machiavelli's Prince, Bacon in person and Halifax
himself. A study of these books, both texts and commentary, is held
to constitute a sufficient grounding in political theory, useful to the
student of history and of interest indeed to anyone.

While the value of these works (or, at any rate, of some of them) is
beyond question, their general tendency is not without its dangers.
The reader is left with fallacies as well as facts. These fallacies are
neither stated nor upheld nor even perhaps deliberately implied.
They arise indeed less from the study of any given work than, as a
general impression, from all. They are none the less fallacious for
that and their refutation is more than overdue.

First of these implicit fallacies is the idea that political thought is
confined to authors and denied to everyone else. By this reasoning we
must learn the ideas of Plato and Laski and can safely ignore those of
Pericles and Churchill. This is surely to give an absurd weight to the
accident of authorship. The idea expressed verbally or in action may
be at least as novel and potent as the idea expressed with pen and ink.
Closely connected with this fallacy is the idea that political theory
has its origin in ancient Greece. The classically-educated historian
has rarely thought it necessary to go either further back or further
afield. He may have been misled by the derivation of the words in
use; and yet the absurdity of this would seem obvious enough. To
deny that there were politics before the Greeks invented the word is
no more reasonable than to assume that the Greeks were uncivilised
until the Romans had taught them Latin.

If it is wrong to conclude that all political theory began with Plato,
it is at least equally wrong to suppose that all political thinking has
been done in Europe and America. Of nearly every basic political

8 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

concept it is true to say that the Greeks had a word for it and often
the word that is still in use. That is not to say, however, that there is
no Chinese word with a similar meaning. Still less need we assume that
the Chinese and Indians have had no ideas of their own. There are
books purporting to summarise the history of political thought of
which it can truly be said that they do nothing of the kind. Candid at
least are the book titles in which 'Western' political thought is
specified and more candid still those which define their even narrower
scope 'From Bacon to Halifax'. But while there is reason to commend
the honesty of those who profess to do no more than they have done,
there is less to be said for their originality and courage. Too many
have followed each other along the same well-trodden track. Too few
have seen that a history of political thought must be world-wide if it
is not to be fallacious.

Another impression which the reader may gain from reading the
current books on political thought is that the development of political
institutions has progressed steadily from the days of Lycurgus or
Solon down to the present day; the ultimate achievement being
British Parliamentary Democracy or else perhaps the American Way
of Life. There are here two separate fallacies involved. The first lies
in the assumption that all history illustrates a story of betterment or
progress with ourselves as the final product. The second lies in the
assumption that such progress as there has been is a western achieve-
ment in which no oriental can claim even the smallest share. History
records no such monopoly and no such unbroken progression. What
the historian does find, however, is a recurrence of the belief that
perfection has been reached and that a given constitution (like that of
the United States) represents finality. There is, in fact, no historical
reason for supposing that our present systems of governance are
other than quite temporary expedients. To demonstrate, therefore,
that all progress leads upwards to these pinnacles of wisdom is
peculiarly needless. In such an attempt one ignores half the work that
has already been done and all the work that is still to do.

The belief that the present or else some other recommended
constitution can represent finality is as old or older than Plato. It
runs through many of the texts which the student is required to read.
It forms even now the basis for heated discussions as to what form of
rule is best. It is essentially pre-Darwinian, however, as a mode of
thought. No believer in evolution would expect to find that sort of
finality. He would rather regard society as a growing tree than as a
building nearing its completion. He would hope to trace a pattern of
growth and decay. He would question, on principle, whether any
society could be static. He would see in finality nothing more nor less
than death. In practice, however, it is easier for the student of to-day

PREFACE 9

to appreciate how institutions have evolved than to grasp that their
evolution must and should continue. Even when the likelihood of
further development is recognised, it is usually seen as a perfecting of
what exists; as the process, for example, by which representative
democracy can be made more representative still. But history shows
us no previous example of institutions thus perfected. It reveals rather
a sequence in which one form of rule replaces another, each in turn
achieving not perfection but decay. The fallacy of the Utopians is to
suppose that finality can and should be attained. To the believer in
evolution nothing could seem less probable.

One other error implied in the existing text-books is that the
published works of political theorists have had a vast influence on
actual events. The student is all too apt to visualise each leader as one
likely to refer to a book before deciding upon a policy. But Robes-
pierre no more slept with Le Contrat Social under his pillow than did
Louis XVI refer to the Leviathan. No actual politician is greatly
influenced by a book of political theory although many have been
influenced by a book of religion. The politician who reads at all will
have read not only the text which the historian thinks significant but
forty-nine other forgotten works of which the historian has never even
heard. And if one book appears to have been his favourite it will be
because the author recommends what he, the ruler, has already
decided to do; or what indeed he has already done. Historically, the
book comes afterwards to defend the deed. This is not to say that the
book is always written after the revolution it seems to justify. It may
be written beforehand, gaining its wide circulation only after the
event. The books, by contrast, which supported the losing cause have
been forgotten, overlooked, destroyed — or else never published.
There is thus a natural selection among books, giving to some the
popularity and survival which rewards what is relevant to the mood of
an age, and ensuring for others the oblivion reserved for all that seems
eccentric and out of tune. In ancient China (as in modern China) the
books out of accord with the party line were deliberately burnt. In
England or America the books thus out of step will remain un-
published for lack of expected sales. It is not books which influence
political events. It is the events which decide which book is to be
pulped and which made compulsory reading in the schools.

The significance then of the political theorist is not that he guided
the ruler but that he provided the ruler with a rational explanation of
what he, the ruler, had already done. His works to that extent throw
light upon the age in which he lived — or at any rate upon the age in
which his works were widely read. But to interpret policy throughout
the ages in terms of its literary justification is open to certain ob-
jections, of which the chief is that politics are far older than political

10 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

theory. To begin the story where it is usually made to begin (in
Athens of the 5th century B.C.) is to omit the essential background to
all human affairs; the background studied by the anthropologist. It
would be untrue to say that all authors on the history of political
theory have ignored this background. It is with reference to it,
however, that they prove least convincing. They are apt to perpetuate
by quotation the mistakes made (perhaps unavoidably) by the
earlier political thinkers. These philosophers were apt to picture a
happy community of primitive men suddenly deciding to organise
themselves and elect a ruler.

'I assume' writes Rousseau, "^ 'that men have reached a point at
which the obstacles that endanger their preservation in the state of
nature overcome by their resistance the forces which each individual
can exert with a view to maintaining himself in that state. Then this
primitive condition can no longer subsist, and the human race would
perish unless it changed its mode of existence. . . .'

[The problem is] 'To find a form of association which may defend
and protect with the whole force of the community the person and
property of every associate, and by means of which each, coalescing
with all, may nevertheless obey only himself and remain as free as
before'. [To this problem the Social Contract furnishes the solution.]

'The clauses of this contract are so determined . . . that, although
they have never perhaps been formally enunciated, they are every-
where the same, everywhere tacitly admitted and recognised'.

There might be no great harm in reading this piece of eighteenth
century rhetoric provided that the antidote were to follow. The
student who is advised to read drivel should at least be warned that it
is drivel he is being asked to read. Wild guesses about primitive man
are needless, for primitive man has survived for our study. And even
the slightest acquaintance with the aborigines of Australia, Malaya
or Borneo will convince the student that no human beings have ever
come together with an open mind to discuss the basis of their social
organisation. Nor is there any reason to suppose that our primitive
ancestors in Europe or indeed in ancient Britain were in this respect
/very different from the peoples whose culture has remained primitive.

/ There has never been a clean page upon which to write a constitu-
tion. Man had, from the start, physical, biological and mental
characteristics; and many of these he still retains. It is by these
inherited characteristics, dating back for thousands of years, that his

"political institutions have been influenced. Books which fail to make
this clear are as misleading as they are tedious, as dangerous as they
are wrong.

It is no wonder that the social anthropologist turns with disgust

' Social Contract. J. J. Rousseau. Chapter VI.

PREFACE 11

from works of political theory. In a recent and important work on the
political structure of African tribes/ the editors explain how un-
helpful they found these works to be.

We have not found that the theories of political philosophers have
helped us to understand the societies we have studied and we consider
them of little scientific value; for their conclusions are seldom for-
mulated in terms of observed behaviour or capable of being tested by
this criterion. Political philosophy has chiefly concerned itself with
how men ought to live and what form of government they ought to
have, rather than with what are their political habits and institutions.

In so far as political philosophers have attempted to understand
existing institutions instead of trying to justify or undermine them, they
have done so in terms of popular psychology or of history. They have
generally had recourse to hypotheses about earlier stages of human
society presumed to be devoid of political institutions. . . .

The editors, in this instance, find some excuse for the political
theorist in that 'little anthropological research has been conducted
into primitive political systems' and even less effort made to correlate
what little has been done. While it is thus true to say that the subject
remains largely unexplored, it is also manifest (even from such
knowledge as there is) that the theories of 'original contract' are
baseless suppositions. The anthropologist may not be ready to
explain how political institutions first came into being but he is at
least prepared to describe theories as 'unscientific' which are sup-
ported neither by evidence nor probability.

From a study of the existing text-books in political theory some
would conclude that the whole subject were better taken from the
historian and handed to the social anthropologist. Rather than leave
this subject to historians whose works reflect an ignorance of
anthropology, an ignorance of real politics and an ignorance of any-
thing outside Europe and America, some would prefer to set up
schools of political science. For this plan there is much to be said.
The difficulty about it, as applied to political ideas current in his-
torical times, is that every political theorist has an historical back-
ground. He thinks within the framework of the world he knows.
Eliminate the historian and you lose all trace of the political thinker's
background and motives. Apart from this danger, it is a question
whether the historian should remain ignorant of social anthropology.
It might be better to include pre-history in the syllabus which the
future historian must study. Whatever is done, however, there will
remain fields of investigation which the historian and social anthro-
pologist may have to share. No great harm should result if their

^African Political Systems. M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard. Oxford, 1940.
See 4th Impression (1950), pp. 4 and 5.

12 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

activities should overlap. More harm results, as at present, in fields
which each has left to the other. So far from overlapping, their
present activities do not even meet.

While it would be absurd to follow previous writers in assuming
that political thought begins with the Greeks, it is to them that we owe
many of the political terms commonly in use. As these are not al-
ways used in exactly the same sense, it may be as well at this point
to define the terms used in this book. As the Greeks perceived, there
are, broadly speaking, three alternatives in government; rule by one,
rule by a few and rule by many. Rule by one person can take the form
of Monarchy, Despotism or Dictatorship. Monarchy is the rule by
a King or Queen, depending upon religion, descent, election or
established custom. Despotism is the rule by a King or Queen,
established and maintained by force or cunning. Dictatorship is rule
by a person who is neither King nor Queen whose authority derives
from a particular emergency and whose office is widely regarded as a
temporary expedient. Rule by a few can take the form of Feudalism,
Aristocracy or Oligarchy. Feudalism is rule by nobles, each with
control of some province or locality and many almost independent
of any centralised authority. Aristocracy is rule by persons enjoying
a special and often inherited respect, acting mainly through a
central government under their own control. (Theocracy, or rule by
a priesthood, is one form of Aristocracy). Oligarchy is rule by a few
persons with no special claim to respect other than for their wealth,
ability or vigour. (Bureaucracy, or rule by officials, is one form of
Oligarchy). Rule by many can take the form of Democracy, Rep-
resentative Democracy or Anarchy. Democracy is rule by all or by a
majority of the voters, by direct expression of their will. Represen-
tative Democracy is rule by all or a majority of the voters but through
elected representatives. Anarchy, if it can be termed a form of rule,
means the refusal of a large number to be ruled at all.

Although the basic forms of government are only three, it would
obviously be wrong to expect any government to conform exactly to
any one of them. In practice, forms of rule are often mixed. Thus, a
pure monarchy or despotism is difficult to maintain for long except
over a relatively small area. A single ruler soon needs help and, in
seeking it, becomes a little less absolute. Despotism or even Dictator-
ship may become monarchy by virtue of time and habit. A Democracy
may still retain elements of earlier forms of rule. When, therefore, a
State is here described as, say, an Aristocracy, it must be taken to
mean the preponderance of Aristocratic rule, not the exclusion of any
other form.

If we owe some of our terminology to Plato, it is from both Plato
and Aristotle that we take the idea of sequence. As a scientist and the

PREFACE 13

son of a physician, Aristotle perceived that forms of rule decay and
so give place to others. He did not prescribe a single type of con-
stitution as best for every State. The laws towards which he was feeling
his way were not The Laws of Plato but the laws of change. With his
aid we can readily perceive at least a tendency for Monarchy to turn
into Aristocracy or Feudalism, for Aristocracy to become Democracy
(perhaps via Oligarchy), for Democracy to turn into chaos and for
order to be restored by a Despotism or Dictatorship. When the
Dictatorship gives place to Monarchy the wheel has turned full circle
and the process may begin again. It would, of course, be a gross
exaggeration to represent this tendency as an invariable rule. The
sequence is subject to many variations and exceptions. It can be
disrupted as a result of war. And different lands within the same
civilisation develop at different speeds so that, existing side by side,
they represent different stages of the same sequence. Thus a historian
of the remote future might remark that the countries of Europe
mostly passed from Democracy to Dictatorship during the first half
of the Twentieth Century. This would be true, broadly speaking, but
he would have to note certain exceptions and explain that the various
transitions were not simultaneous and that the countries affected were
not necessarily adjacent to each other. We to-day can generalise about
the past in much the same way, again noting the exceptions. And one
factor which we can observe as regulating the speed of change is the
area and physical nature of the country to be governed. It is almost
impossible to govern a vast and diverse area except by loyally up-
holding a more or less divine Monarch. While the sequence of the
forms of rule may be roughly followed, the tendency is to hurry
through the forms that are obviously unworkable and return with
relief to the form which offers most stability. It is perhaps this factor
more than any other which prevents much valid generalisation about
any given period. If the Athenians were democrats when the Persians
were not, it was basically because they had a different problem to
solve.

In a study, therefore, of political institutions and the ideas to which
they give rise, there is reason to abandon chronology and concentrate
on the successive forms of governance, in this book the plan followed
is to take each form in turn and show its origin, its nature, its relative
success, its theoretical justification, its decline and its decay. For this
purpose the historical examples will be taken, for purposes of
illustration, from any period and from any land. This must involve
drawing upon the political experience of different civilisations. This is
a useful process although difficult in a book of this size. But the reader
who is thus encouraged to take a world-wide view should remember
that the political approach is only one of several. During the life of a

14 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

given civilisation the lands affected by it may undergo different
forms of rule, and perhaps in a more or less logical sequence, but the
civilisation has a life cycle of its own and one perhaps uninfluenced by
political ideas. The rise and fall of civilisations might best be studied
in terms of climate, food supply, soil-erosion, reproduction and
disease. As compared with factors such as these, the forms of rule are
a superficial matter. It is true that certain forms of government are
often associated with a civilisation's early development. It would be
far more difficult and controversial to show what type of government
prevailed at its zenith or during its decay. There is, to begin with, a
difficulty in agreeing as to when the zenith was reached and almost as
great a difficulty in fixing a period for a civilisation's end.

If we see the sequence of political institutions as falling within the
life-cycle of the different civilisations, it is relevant to ask how long a
civilisation may be expected to last. The Graeco-Roman civilisation
might be said to have had a life of 900-1,000 years (say, from 500 B.C.
or rather earlier, to about a.d. 400). The civilisation of Sumeria and
Babylon may have lasted about 1,000 years, too. If we regard the
Chou, Ch'in, and Sui Dynasties of China as representing different
civilisations, they might be credited with durations of 750, 800 and
770 years respectively. From a.d. 321 to 1525 India had a civilisation
which thus lasted about 1,200 years. The civilisation of Inca Peru
lasted 1,100 years and that of Aztec Mexico about 850. Apart from
the doubtful examples of Egypt and Japan, we might be tempted to
conclude that civilisations have an average life of about a thousand
years. Any such conclusion would be rash but there would be some
justification for denying that many civilisations have lasted very much
longer. It has been argued, indeed, that the periods of high civilisation
have all been relatively brief: —

The acme of Greek civilization is confined to the fifth and fourth
centuries B.C., Hellenistic civilization to the third and second cen-
turies B.C. Rome was certainly not a really cultured country before
the first century B.C., and her creative period ended with the second
century of the Christian era. We may reckon the Byzantine civilization
at best from the sixth to the tenth Century, the Arab civilization from
the eighth to the twelfth. . . . The periods of high civilization are
always short — a few centuries, sometimes hardly one century.^

The difficulty is one of definition. It might not, however, be wildly
amiss to think of a civilisation as lasting up to about a thousand years,
with its greatest achievements confined to a middle period of two or
three centuries. Any sequence (or repeated sequences) in the forms of
rule must usually fall within that space of time. But to associate the

' The Passing of the European Age. Eric Fischer. Cambridge, 1948, p. 191.

PREFACE 15

highest achievements with any one form of rule would be difficult, if
only from a lack of agreement as to what the highest achievements are.

The plan of this book, it will be seen, is analytical. It is not to the
purpose to predict the future or recommend some particular form of
rule. There is included, however, an epilogue which concerns the
present. This is not designed as a remedy for present ills but merely
as a plea for studying them in a more scientific way.

The author's thanks are due to his pupils at the University of
Malaya, with many of whom these problems have been discussed;
to his secretary, Mrs. Y. J. G. Lawton, without whose tireless help the
book would still be no more than a mass of illegible notes; and to
Ann, who has had to be very, very patient.

C. NoRTHCOTE Parkinson

University of Malaya
Singapore

INTRODUCTION

Primitive Man

IN the Introduction to a recent work on social anthropology,
already mentioned in the Preface/ the editors state that 'We do
not consider that the origins of primitive institutions can be dis-
covered and, therefore, we do not think it worth while seeking for
them'. This may be true. It need not, however, prevent us from
noting what appear to be the basic characteristics of man, considered
from a political point of view. It is hardly in question, for example,
that men have always (since being recognisable as men) lived in
groups of some kind, family groups or tribes. Man is thus a social
animal, although less so perhaps than some other creatures, especially
certain insects. Man is also carnivorous, able to live on either a meat
or a vegetable diet but equipped with teeth different from those of a
grass-eating animal. Some at least of his food has always been trapped
or pursued, fished or shot. Then again, the young of the human
family (born singly, for the most part, not in a litter) are helpless for
an exceptionally long period, needing protection and care for many
years and maturing very slowly indeed.

These physical facts have their political implications. Among
carnivorous creatures with slowly-maturing young there must be a
fairly sharp differentiation between the sexes. With the young to be
fed, nursed and protected, the more active pursuits must be left to
the male. In hunting and kindred activities men have therefore felt
superior to women. As against that, women and children must be
kept out of danger if the family group is to survive. If men are killed
in hunting, the survivors may still be enough for breeding purposes.
The same is not true of women, upon whose number the natural
increase must depend. Add to this differentiation of the sexes the
prolonged differentiation between the adult and the young. Human
children must be taught (and therefore controlled) for so long that
their subordination becomes habitual. And this obedience to those
older and more skilled may survive after the child has become an
adult. In the social group a certain authority is thus vested in the
older members.

The authority of age merges into the parental authority. Although

' African Political Systems. Ed. by M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard. Oxford,
1940, 4th Impression, 1950.

17

18 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

primitive people often fail to recognise paternity, developing com-
munities have all come to see in it a heightening of the authority of
age in the special relationship between father and child. ^ It is this
relationship which provides us with our basic notions of authority
and disciphne. Nearly all our common terms of respect are derived
from it. We have thus the words 'Sir' (Sire), 'Monsieur', 'Little
Father' (in Russian), 'Father' as addressed to a priest or 'Holy
'Father' as addressed to the Pope. Psychologists break up the idea of
respect into the three elements of wonder, affection and fear. The
child thus feels for his father some wonder at the ability of an older
person to do what the child cannot; some affection for an older person
whose intention is at least to ensure the child's survival; and some
fear of an older person who may punish the child by smacking its head.

If physical characteristics have a bearing on political development,
so no doubt have mental characteristics. It has thus been observed
that man has taken about 500,000 years to evolve, of which period
490,000 years passed before any sort of settled existence began and
495,000 before writing was invented.^ So that all inherited charac-
teristics are pre-civilised in origin. This is obviously true of the basic
instincts of hunger, fear, hatred and sex; for these are shared with
other animals. But man would seem to have, in addition, such ten-
dencies as Animism, Taboo, Fear of the Unknown and Revenge.
Animism is the ascribing to animals, mountains, wind and thunder
the individual character man perceives in himself. The schoolboy,
having named his bicycle, will soon endow it with a personality.
Animistic objects invade the undergraduate's essay, all sorts of actions
being ascribed to 'The Spirit of the Reformation' or 'The Soul of
India'. A whole nation becomes personified in its king or its flag.
Taboo represents a confusion of mind over ethical, moral or sacred
matters. It takes the form of odd distinctions between what is 'pure'
and 'impure'. It surrounds the crime of incest and befogs the question
of whether a man should marry his deceased wife's sister. Fear of
the unknown, the novel, the foreign, is a deeply implanted emotion
from which few men are wholly free. And the primitive idea of
revenge lurks behind our criminal law, our prisons and our gallows.
These and other instincts inform the political ideas of mankind.

The physical characteristics of man would seem obvious enough.
They have often, however, been overlooked, as for example in the
American Declaration of Independence, which reads : 'We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that men are born equal. . . .' Whatever else

' Matriarchy appears to be an earlier institution but the term is misleading as applied,
for example, to certain districts of Malaya. Matriarchy there means primarily the
inheritance of property through women and dates presumably from a period when
descent through the male line could not be traced.

- The Mind in the Making. J. H. Robinson. New York, 1939, p. 65.

INTRODUCTION 19

that first truth may be it is not self-evident. It might perhaps be
defended in terms of Christian or Islamic theology. Taken, however,
from its religious context, it becomes difficult to sustain. Are 'men',
in this sense, to include women? If so, their equality is doubtful now
and was firmly denied in eighteenth century America. Are 'men' to
include persons of the age of twenty or less? For these are not, and
never have been, politically or even legally equal to adults. Are
younger brothers equal, for that matter, to elder brothers? They were
certainly not so in English or American law. Lastly, are 'men' in this
sense, to include negroes? The Americans of Washington's generation
had a prompt answer to that. But what becomes of the grand
generalisation when the exceptions to it include the majority of
mankind? A Christian will assert that all souls are equally valuable
in the sight of God: but that equality is lost when one child is
baptised and another not. Nearest perhaps to the truth was the
Indian thinker Asvaghosa, who asserted that human beings are 'in
respect of joy and sorrow, love, insight, manners and ways, death,
fear and life all equal'. ^ But this philosopher, while attacking caste,
says nothing of the other basic inequalities; the differentiation be-
tween male and female functions, the subordination of child to
parent, the subordination of the young to any elder person and the
subordination of the younger child to the elder. One might find a
further inequality based upon the size of family, for the child who is
one of fourteen is less valuable to its parents than the child who is
one of two or the only one of its sex.

Our knowledge about the political ideas of primitive man goes
little beyond our awareness of the basic characteristics which we still
possess. What knowledge we have has been confused, moreover, by
the persistent and widespread legend of the Golden Age. This legend,
known to the Greeks, was also believed among the Indians and
Chinese and can be paralleled by the Jewish story of the Garden of
Eden and the Fall. The Hindu version of this legend is thus described
by Beni Prasad : —

In a passage of poetic brilliance the Vanaparva records how in very
ancient days men lived a pure godly life. They were, in fact, equal to
gods. They could ascend to heaven and return to earth at will. The
wishes of all were fulfilled. Sufferings were few and real trouble or fear
was none. Perfect virtue and happiness reigned. The span of life
extended over thousands of years. But all this was changed after a
long while. The Santi-parva, too, has it that there was at first a sort of
Golden Age wherein existed neither sovereignty nor king, neither
chastisement nor chastiser. All men used to protect one another
righteously. But after a while their hearts were assailed by error.

' Theory of Government in Ancient India. Beni Prasad. Allahabad, 1927. See p. 219.

20 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Their faculties of perception were clouded; their virtue declined;
greed and avarice set in. The downward course continued. . . .^
He refers to the same legend elsewhere, stating that:

The Buhaddharma Purana, an Upapriana, gives its political theory
in the form of a narration of the ancient history of the human race.
The world began with the golden age called Satya Yuga which was free
from all sorrow and sin, disease and disputes. It was a heaven of
perfect virtue and happiness. . . .^

The anthropologist of to-day is less prone to enthusiasm about
such equality as exists among primitive peoples. Even Darwin ob-
served that the equality observable among the Fuegian tribes 'must
for a long time retard their civilisation'.^ More recently, Landtman
has pointed out* that such equality as exists among the Papuans,
Bushmen, Hottentots, Nagas, Andamanese and other peoples is
directly associated with their low degree of culture. The emergence
of the idea of rank is connected with 'a somewhat higher degree of
evolution'.

The Chinese Golden Age was described by Kwang-Tze, follower
of Lao-Tze (604-532 b.c.) in a passage which has been rendered
thus: —

In the age of perfect virtue, men attached no value to wisdom. . . .
They were upright and correct, without knowing that to be so was
Righteousness: they loved one another, without knowing that to do so
was Benevolence: they were honest and loyal-hearted, without know-
ing that it was Loyalty; they fulfilled their engagements without
knowing that to do so was Good Faith. . . .^

This legend found ready acceptance in the eighteenth century,
when talk about the 'Noble Savage' was not uncommon among
literary men who had read Captain Cook's description of the South
Sea Islanders. More recently, moreover, it has been defended by
W. J. Perry and G. Elliot Smith, who attributed great virtues to
primitive peoples, asserting that 'savages', whose merits were less
obvious, had once been civilised and are thus degenerate rather than
primitive. Of this theory it may suffice to say that while some primi-
tive people might be shown to have been honest, inoffensive,
contented and mild, they can also be shown to have been thin, small,
hungry, dirty and diseased, and their life 'poore, nasty, brutish and
short'. *^

The modern anthropologist is less inclined to draw distinctions
between primitive people and savages. He is more hesitant in fact

' I hid., p. 27.

- Theory of Government in Ancient India. Beni Prasad, p. 193.

' Journal of Re.searche.s. C. Darwin, Chapter X.

' The Origin of the Inequality of the Social Clas.'^es. G. Landtman. London, 1938, p. 3

' Human History. G. Elliot Smith, p. 182.

'■ Leviathan. T. Hobbcs. Part L Chap. XIII.

INTRODUCTION 21

about generalising in any context. To early political institutions,

moreover, he has given perhaps less attention than to anything else.

The following passage, however, quoted from a standard work, may

typify the views that are currently held: —

Among simpler primitives there are above all two principles which
form the foundation of government: first, the territorial principle —
that is, the geographically limited area belonging to a number of
people: second, the community which exceeds the single family, be it
local group, clan, tribe or people. On these two pillars repose the
governmentlike institutions of primitive cultures. . . .
... In Australia and among some other food-gathering tribes the
executive agencies of public opinion were the old men who, seasoned
in life and in the tribal laws, not only informed the younger ones
concerning the boundaries of the clan territory, but also instructed
them in the laws of marriage, the rites of initiation, the distribution of
food — all those norms existing from time immemorial.

Our sources report unanimously that chieftainship was slightly
developed or absent. . . .^

Whether or not food-gathering peoples lived (or still live) in a
Golden Age, it seems generally agreed that their main political
institution was merely the authority of the older men. Nor is this
difficult to understand, for family groups which are to live on wild
fruit, berries, roots, game and fish cannot grow to beyond a certain
size. With a larger number than about twenty the food would be
insufficient near any one camp in the recognised hunting-ground.
And among as small a number as they were likely to muster the
problems of government need hardly arise. Typical of food-gatherers
are the Semang (or Negritos) of Malaya, about which people a great
deal has been written. In 1926, it is true, Mr. R. J. Wilkinson re-
marked that 'with all this mass of literature we know next to nothing
about the aborigines . . . books are big when facts are few'" but more
detailed work was afterwards done by Ivor H. N. Evans.^ He wrote
of them that:

. . . The groups seem to be but little organised, but in every camp will

be found an acknowledged headman and often, too, a 'medicineman'

who is also an important personage in the life of the people. . . .

The Semang can be readily contrasted with the rather more

advanced aboriginal tribes, inaccurately termed the Sakai. These have

a rather more settled existence, with a little agriculture, and with

them the chief and the medicine-man are more firmly established.

Of them Wilkinson wrote: —

... we find that the smallest political unit among the central Sakai is

' General Anthropology. Ed. by Franz Boas. New York, 1938. Chap. X. Government
by Julius E. Lips. See pp. 487-527.

-Papers on Malay Subjects: the Aboriginal Tribes. R. J. Wilkinson. 1926. p. 10.
" The Negritos of Malaya. Ivor H. N. Evans. Cambridge, 1937.

22 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

the family-group. Every family — by which is meant a living patriarch
and all his descendants and not a mere menage of husband and wife —
keeps together and keeps to itself: it does not unite with others for
mutual protection and social intercourse. Exogamy means marrying
into another family, not into another tribe. A number of these family-
units living within a definite area and recognising a common hereditary
chief make up the Sakai State — if such a term is permissible in the
case of so small a community. . . . [The Chief] settles disputes between
one family and another, and keeps peace generally in his tribe. . . .
Within the family-group property was held in common; and the
unsuccessful hunter . . . [received his share of the food].
. . . Communistic ideas are strong among the Sakai. At the same time,
their Communism does not imply liberty, equality and fraternity.
There is a vast amount of ceremonious family etiquette and a host of
technicalities regulating the mode of address of one member of the
family to another. It is a serious offence for a young . . . [Sakai] to
address an elder by his personal name. . . .^

If a state is recognisable by 'the maintenance of political order
within fixed territorial limits' the Sakai may be said to have formed
states. These states remain, however, in a very rudimentary form.

IMention has already been made of the 'medicineman', the sooth-
sayer, wizard or magician, who figures in some of the most primitive
societies and rather gains in importance as their culture becomes
more advanced. His functions arise perhaps mainly from two innate
characteristics of man; the tendency to fear such natural phenomena
as thunder and lightning, and the tendency to dream at night. Of the
Semang Wilkinson writes," 'He fears lightning and thunder to such an
extent that observers have credited him with the possession of a
thunder-god'. If thunder thus gives rise to the idea of a god of wrath,
dreams as naturally promote ideas of ghosts and immortality. The
'spirit' is thus the real self, the something which is absent when a
person is asleep. Where is it? That it is free to wander is shown by
the sleeper dreaming of being somewhere else and proved again when
someone else has dreamt of him. On death, the same spirit is again
missing and can still appear in another's dream — proof sufficient that
it still exists. Here are good grounds for belief in an after-life. Evans
is able to devote twelve chapters of his book to Negrito religion,
chapters which cover the deities, a theory of the world's origin and
theories of death, burial and the life to come. The Negritos have
elaborate stories also to account for thunder, lightning, storms and
eclipses. They have, too, a fairly long list of things that they must not
say, do, eat or touch; and the penalties for a breach of etiquette
illustrate their principal fears — illness, being crushed under a falling

' Wilkinson, op. cit. p. 48.

- Papers on Malay Subjects: the Aboriginal Tribes. R. J. Wilkinson. 1926. p. I.

INTRODUCTION 23

tree or being killed by a tiger. The Sakai are more superstitious still,
believing not only in the Sun God and Moon Goddess but also in
demons, ghosts, vampires, dragons, man-eating monkeys, giant birds
and were-tigers. The communal wizard, known at least among the
Semang, is a key man among the Sakai.

The soothsayer found, as he gained influence, that there were two
policies open to him. In the first place, while emphasising the danger
of demons and ghosts, he could offer various charms and incantations
which defeat the evil spirits by their own power; many comparable
devices still linger (for example, mascots, crossing the fingers,
throwing salt over the shoulder). In the second place, he could
assert that the benevolent Sun or Moon God was more powerful
than the demons and would protect those who approached him in
the right way, by personal appeal and with suitable gifts. The
magician who followed the first policy was the forerunner of the
scientist, the physician and the psychologist. The soothsayer who
preferred the second policy was the forerunner of the priest. Generally
speaking, the priest has been more honest, and (until recently) more
successful.

The classic work by Sir James Frazer^ is a study in the relationship
between magic and religion, between both and kingship. In it he
shows that all or most peoples have believed at one time in magic and
that most of these have gradually transferred their belief to religion,
often for long periods believing in both. He remarks that the sorcerer
came to practise for the whole community as well as privately.

Whenever ceremonies of this sort are observed for the common
good, it is obvious that the magician ceases to be merely a private
practitioner and becomes to some extent a public functionary. The
development of such a class of functionaries is of greet importance for
the political as well as the religious evolution of society. For when the
welfare of the tribe is supposed to depend on the performance of these
magical rites, the magician rises into a position of much influence and
repute, and may readily acquire the rank and authority of a chief or
king. The profession accordingly draws into its ranks some of the
ablest and most ambitious men of the tribe. . . .

This may well have been so. It is important, however, to realise,
that the really primitive tribe had little to offer its magician. The
Chiefship to which he might aspire (and very occasionally with suc-
cess, as in Kedah) carried with it no very despotic power. The rising
importance of the medicine-man depended, in fact, on a change in
the habits of the tribe. While the people remained in small family
groups of food-gatherers, the potentialities of both chief and magician

' The Golden Bough: a study in magic and religion. Sir James George Frazer. See
Chapter IV.

24 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

were, of necessity, undeveloped. The story would be simpler if all
food-gathering peoples had developed in the same way from the point
at which they abandoned their primitive existence. In fact, however,
they could progress in two different ways, if indeed they were to
progress at all. Some concentrated on the domestication of animals
and became nomadic herdsmen. Others, given different opportunities,
became cultivators of the soil. In either event, the change of habits
brought with it important political consequences, but these were not
identical as between cultivators and pastoralists. To some extent they
diverged and it is upon this divergence that some writers have laid
the greatest stress. The divergence itself is fitly symbolised in the
biblical story of Cain and Abel which rightly follows after the story
of a primeval innocence. The danger here is to over-simplify both the
divergence and its results. For while conflict between pastoralists and
cultivators tended to follow, the latter being usually vanquished, it
would be wrong to maintain that this was invariable. Professor
Franz Oppenheimer maintained^ that all states known to history are
thus characterised by the domination of one class by another for the
purpose of economic exploitation. And Professor R. H. Lowie
agreed at least that the subjection of one people to another had its
origin in conquest.'- More has since been discovered, however, about
the development of societies in both America and Africa and it is
now clear that there are exceptions to every rule.^

Important among recent studies is that made of African Political
Systems under the editorship of M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard.^
This study summarises what is known about the political institutions
of eight African peoples. Three of these, the Bantu Kavirondo, the
Tallensi and the Nuer, developed no government save by elders
within the separate tribes. The other five, the Zulu, Ngwato, Bemba,
Ankole and Kede, developed quite advanced forms of government
but not in such a way as to justify any very general conclusions.
While it is true that some of these peoples are cultivators, and others
herdsmen — with at least one example of pastoralists (Bahima)
dominant over agriculturalists (Bairu) — it is also evident that they
present no sharp distinction between each other in political structure.
This would seem to suggest that generalisations hitherto made about
the political tendencies of pastoral peoples are not applicable to
herdsmen as such but to nomadic horsemen. To find the equivalent
in Africa of the Semitic nomads we should perhaps turn rather to the
Fulbe who founded the Sokoto empire in the early nineteenth
century.

' Der Staat (1907) quoted in The Origin of the State. R. H. Lowie. New York, 1927.

- The Origin of the State. R. H. Lowie. New York, 1927. p. 42.

' General Anthropology, op. cit. p. 526.

' African Political Systems. Oxford, 1940. 4th Impression, 1950.

INTRODUCTION 25

Sir Henry Maine drew a contrast between the blood tie typical of
nomadic people and the territorial tie found among agriculturalists,^
and in general his ideas are still agreed.

Herdsmen and related societies.

. . . The individual and the patriarchal family group are the outstanding
feature. The older coUectivist element is replaced by individualism.
The social unit is the patriarchal family group (brothers, nephews,
sons, grandsons) which also claims to political independence. The tribe
is headed by a chief who has been elected or whose office is hereditary.
. . . Typical among the herdsmen is, above all, the development of
private ownership and the accumulation of wealth in the form of
stock. This at the same time presented the opportunity of developing
class distinctions and of a vertical stratification of society, a differ-
entiation of rich and poor. These beginnings of a hierarchic system
among the herdsmen did not flourish until they came in contact with
the agricultural societies. The law of inheritance in most of these
tribes is marked by primogeniture.

The societies of herdsmen of the Old World brought about a political
revolution by the creation of large empires in Asia as well as in
Africa.^

This last statement is, no doubt, true. But was the revolution due
to their being herdsmen or to their having horses? The point is an
interesting one for it is rather questionable whether the preceding
remarks, applicable to Central Asia, Siberia, Arabia and Mesopo-
tamia, are in fact equally true of Africa. Of the eight African peoples
to which we have referred the Zulu come nearest, perhaps, to being
purely pastoral. But of them it is stated by Max Gluckman that
'The clans had disappeared as units', and 'members of a single clan
might be found in many political groups'.^ He also remarks that
'there were few ways in which a commoner could acquire wealth'*
and that the wealth of a chief did not give him 'opportunity to live at
a higher level than his inferiors'.^ He explains, further, that 'there was
no class snobbery among the Zulu' and that 'all had the same educa-
tion and lived in the same way'. If the Africans turn out to be poor
examples of 'herdsmen', the factor which links the other 'herdsmen'
may be found to be, not cattle but horses, and there are reasons
for supposing that this might well be so. In the following pages
where 'pastoral peoples' are mentioned they must be taken to mean
nomadic horsemen, and not merely the owners of cattle.

To summarise the conclusions so far reached, primitive men are
found to base their political institutions, such as they are, upon the

' See Ancient Law. Chapter IV.

- General Anthropology, op. cit. p. 515 et sea. '

' African Political Systems, op. cit. pp. 28-29. ', ^ ' '

' Ibid. p. 45. ' ' , .

' Ibid. p. 44. , \ / ' ^

0[;iM

26 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

authority of age. They are essentially social and tend to develop
family groups which are migrant within a recognised territory. If
there is a larger tribal organisation the chief of it rarely has more than
a vague power of arbitration. They have basic instincts common to
other animals but these do not necessarily make them warlike; and
many of them are essentially peaceful. They have a strong belief in
the supernatural, a belief which tends to strengthen as their culture
becomes more advanced. Thus, the soothsayer or magician, not un-
known among the most primitive of them, becomes more important
among those who have progressed. This progress, if and when it
takes place, may be in one of two general directions; towards the
domestication of animals or towards the growing of crops, the choice
being governed by climatic and other conditions. And the further
political development of each group is influenced by the change in its
way of life, the pastoralists diverging most sharply from the culti-
vators as from the time when they become accustomed to using
horses. Even from as brief a summary as this it is manifest that many
later institutions are not the result of individual inspiration but are
deeply rooted in the social character of mankind. At no time did
primitive men attempt to frame a constitution for their body politic.
They had their basic institutions from the beginning, moulded by
their physical and mental characteristics and observable among the
most primitive of them. Their further ideas were bounded and guided
by a framework which was already there.

I^\

I I \ \\

PART I

Monarchy

CHAPTER I

Monarchy among Agricultural Peoples

AGRICULTURE is traditionally thought to have originated in
L Egypt about 5000 b.c.^ the local legend about it being thus
rendered by Plutarch :

When Osiris came to his kingdom ... [he found] . . . the Egyptians
living a life such as animals lead. He taught them the art of agriculture,
gave them laws, and instructed them in the worship of the gods [of
which he was to become one of the chief].

It is unlikely that one genius taught the Egyptians everything, but
there is significance in the sequence of progress as here defined:
agriculture, laws, religion. For agriculture indeed came first and with
vast and immediate implications. Elliot Smith supposes that barley
grew wild on the Nile banks, being developed through periodic floods
and then spread by irrigation. He points out, moreover, following
Professor Cherry, that the Nile is unique, not only in flowing from
the tropics into a temperate zone but in having a double water-
supply. Thus the equatorial sources maintain a steady flow while the
floods in August and September come from the Blue Nile, at other
times nearly dry. The inundation in September immediately precedes
the cool part of the year, which begins in October. These conditions,
he argues, ideally suited for the cultivation of millet and barley, are
found in no other part of the world. Be that as it may, agriculture
spread from Egypt, and perhaps from other centres, and transformed
the lives of people everywhere. Nor would it affect the present
argument if it were shown that agriculture was developed indepen-
dently in more regions than one.

The political implications of an agricultural life are bound up, to
begin with, in the settlement of communities in a given place and not
merely within a given area. Agriculture necessitated the formation of
villages — sited in the Nile Valley, it is believed, on the higher contours
above flood level. Villages dependent upon agriculture could be far

' There is no certainty that it did not originate also in Mesopotamia, nor indeed that
it did not originate in Syria, spreading thence to both Egypt and Mesopotamia. U has
been pointed out that a form of wheat grows wild on the slopes of Mount Herman and
elsewhere between southern Syria and Moab. Early Man, his origin, development and
culture. G. Elliot Smith and others. London, 1931. See especially Lecture V by
H. J. E. Peake p. 122.

28

MONARCHY AMONG AGRICULTURAL PEOPLES 29

more populous than any encampment previously formed — there
would be food for a greater number. Then, cultivation of the land
soon necessitates fences and boundaries, primarily to keep animals
out of the crops but leading naturally to a new idea of property and
hence of law. As agriculture develops the need arises for the carpenter
and metal-worker (to make and mend the implements), the builder
(to construct the granary), the watchman (to guard it) and the lawyer
(to settle boundary disputes). A new need arises for a calendar, by
which to judge when to plant, and a new and intense interest is shown
in sun and water. The weather becomes that absorbing topic of
conversation that it has ever since remained.

Another result of a people turning to agriculture is that religion
tends to become more important than magic. The primitive man
food-gathering in the jungle is concerned with his personal or family
luck. He may find fruit or edible roots. He may come across a sitting
target for his arrow. But he may equally meet a tiger, a cobra, a
ghost or a demon. The cultivator, by contrast, has helped to clear an
area of land, perhaps pushing back the jungle. He works thence-
forward in fields well known to him. The risk of meeting something
unpleasant is greatly reduced and so likewise is the chance of an
unexpected windfall. He has planted seed and chiefly wants a good
crop. And the good or bad weather which affects one group will
probably affect other groups as well. The cultivator is less concerned
with the tiresome spirits which haunt trees, hills, wells and cemeteries
and proportionately more interested in the beneficent gods who
govern the sowing, the growth and the harvest. The task of persuad-
ing the Sun God to ripen the grain is not the individual's or family's
responsibility, for all alike are involved. It is a communal matter, best
handled by an expert interceding on behalf of the village. The sooth-
sayer entrusted with this task is inevitably more priest than magician,
a public officer and one of growing importance. Magic lingers in the
hills and forests and among wandering folk like gypsies. It lingers too
in the normal human mind. But religion became predominant as from
the period when men turned to agriculture.

There can be little doubt that the change which favoured the priest
also favoured the chief. The agricultural unit, the village, was larger
than the family group and offered more scope to a ruler. And it
offered him still wider scope when it developed into a town and, later,
into a city. Apart from that, however, the agriculture which depended
upon irrigation more than upon local rainfall brought many villages
into close association. In some respects their interests might be the
same. In other respects their interest were more likely to conflict.
The economic unit, for purposes of irrigation, would ideally com-
prise the whole river system. It could certainly be nothing as small as

30 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

a village. A more extended political power would go to the man with a
calendar or else to the man who first discovered the principles of
irrigation. Kingship might have grown from that alone, but in Egypt
the powers of the priest were added to those of the chief. Either the
priest secured the office of ruler or else it was the ruler who assumed
priesthood. In Egypt, at any rate, Kingship was the result of com-
bining the two functions in one. It is clear, however, that the religious
function was regarded as the more important. The King-Priest's first
duty was to intercede with the Sun God. He might incidentally rule the
country but that was, by comparison, a trivial duty. Why should the
Sun God listen to him? For the same reason that a human chief or
patriarch will listen to a request — because it is made by his son. It
follows that the King is the son of the god. One can readily imagine
an astute ruler explaining this theory to his subjects. In fact, however,
it is still more likely that it was they who explained it to him.

The Sun God cult is believed to have originated at Heliopolis,
together with the solar calendar.

. . . The man who had made himself the artificer of the new order also
made himself king. When he foretold the future behaviour of the river
and measured the year, his subjects believed that he was something
more than a prophet : he was the cause of the changes he had accurately
predicted. People believed that the king controlled the forces of Nature.
He not only caused the river to rise, and then made the dry land, but
by so doing this, they imagined, he created the earth, and conferred
upon the waters their life-giving powers.^

It has been questioned indeed whether any people carried this cult
as far as did the Egyptians.

The Egyptians of the Fifth Dynasty thus had thorough-going ideals
of the divine nature of their kings, and it is doubtful whether the
identity between royalty and divinity was carried so far in any other
state. 'The Egyptians dare not look at their king. The king could
bring on rain, make sunshine ... he was master of thunder ... he bran-
dishes his sceptre like a thunderbolt. As king of the harvest he turns
over the earth and presides over the sowing. Sickle in hand he cuts the
grain'. From him therefore could be expected the same benefits as from
the gods themselves.^

The Egyptians may have originated kingship and carried the cult
furthest, but all ancient monarchies, almost without exception, were
ruled by Children of the Sun. Perry traces the idea to India, to Indo-
nesia (including Timor, Celebes and Bali), to the Philippines, to
Polynesia, to Hawaii, New Zealand, Samoa and the New World. It is

' Human History. G. Elliot Smith. London, 1930. p. 277

- The Children of the Sun. W. J. Perry. 2nd ed. London, 1927.

MONARCHY AMONG AGRICULTURAL PEOPLES 31

implicit in the Chinese conception of Heaven, to which only the
Emperor could sacrifice. As for the Japanese, they have retained the
cult almost to this day. A celebrated Japanese wrote of his country :—

Great Yamato is a divine country. It is only our land whose foun-
dations were first laid by the divine ancestor. It alone has been trans-
mitted by the sun goddess to a long line of her descendants. There is
nothing of this kind in foreign countries.^

Here the author is mistaken. All dynasties used to trace their
pedigree to a divine ancestor. It is also important to realise that what
is outmoded now in the cult was once a brilliant innovation and the
very thing that distinguished a civilised people from those less
advanced. As a modern author has well expressed it: —

The ancient Near East considered kingship the very basis of
civilization. Only savages could live without a king. Security, peace and
justice could not prevail without a ruler to champion them. If ever a
political institution functioned with the assent of the governed, it
was the monarchy which built the pyramids with forced labor. . . .^

While it might be safe to assume that monarchy was usually the
result of the chief assuming the functions of priest, the deified
monarchy of Egypt seems to date from the period during which a
high-priest of the Sun God made himself the ruler. Userkaf, who
founded the fifth dynasty in about 2750 B.C., had been high-priest at
Heliopolis. He is believed to have been the first Pharaoh to claim
divine descent.^ Previous rulers were divine, no doubt, but not until
after death. The combining of the priestly and secular powers had
been known also in the Sumerian cities but due to the opposite
process. 'The Sumerian patesi was a magistrate who performed
sacred or priestly functions; the kings of the fifth dynasty were
priests who had usurped royal powers'.*

In Egypt the Chief and the Priest had thus become united in the
person of the King and there can be no doubt that the strongest
monarchies were those founded in this way. But there were from the
beginning the monarchies in which the priestly power was vested
separately. This was so in India and at least one story of how
monarchy originated there would make its purpose more strictly
utilitarian.

. . . Another theory of the origin of the state which Mahabharata has
preserved brings us a little nearer Hobbes. It paints the state of nature
not as a Golden Age of righteousness but as a period of terrible
anarchy. ... So they lived for a while but, after some time, they felt

' The Pageant of Japanese History. M. M. Dilts. New York, 1938.

- Kingship and the Gods. Henri Frankfort. Chicago, 1945.

" See Priests and Kings by Harold Peake and H. J. Fleure. Oxford, 1927.

* Priests and Kings, op cit. pp. 177-178.

32 THE EVOLUTION OK POLITICAL THOUGHT

acutely the need of a king. They assembled and approached the Grand-
sire, saying, 'Without a king, O Divine Lord, we are going to destruc-
tion. Appoint some one as our king! All of us shall worship him and he
shall protect us'. The Grandsire nominated Manu to be king but
Manu replied 'I fear all sinful acts. To govern a kingdom is exceedingly
difficult, especially among men who are always false and deceitful in
their behaviour'. [But he was persuaded into it and given the following
encouragement: — ] 'Like the sun scorching everything with his rays,
go out for winning victories, crush the pride of foes and let righteous-
ness always triumph'.^

There is much that is of interest in this account and much that can
be paralleled by the Old Testament story of how the Jewish kingship
was founded. To begin with, a divine Grandsire was there already
when the clamour began. Symbolically at least this would seem to be
correct. It was from the patriarch that the king took his idea of
authority, claiming afterwards to be 'the father of his people'. Apart
from this, the proposal to appoint a king (if ever such a proposal was
made) could come only from a people to whom the idea of monarchy
was familiar. This would mean virtually copying from another and
adjacent people: a procedure the more understandable if the people
in question were thought to be hostile. The Jews, for example, are
described as asking Samuel to choose a king for them. On his ex-
pressing reluctance, they said 'Nay; but we will have a king over us;
that we also may he like all the nations; and that our king may judge
us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. . . ."- The words
italicised suggest how readily the institution of monarchy might
spread by imitation.

India provides the best, though not perhaps the only example of
monarchy kept distinct from priesthood. There is much in the
relationship which the Indians themselves are unable to explain.

The professional priesthood is seen practically from the very begin-
ning of the Rig Veda period. Its position is entirely separate from that
of monarchy. The fact is somewhat puzzling in conception. A study of
the earliest organization of the other branches of the Aryan family
reveals the fact that the original leader was the king, the priest and the
head of the fighting host; and there is nothing to suppose that the
particular branch that came to India began with a special polity or
stepped lightly over some of the stages while retaining fully the
wisdom derived from the experience of each. The latter fact is clear
from the subsequent history of the race during which, in spite of the
predominant influence of the priests (the Brahmanas), there was no
attempt on their part to become king de jure, although they wielded,
through their influence on the ruler, all the powers of the king. Any

' The Theory of Government in Ancient India. Beni Prasad. Allahabad, 1927. p. 29.
- Samuel, 8, verses 4-20.

MONARCHY AMONG AGRICULTURAL PEOPLES 33

explanation, however, of the early separation of priesthood from
kingship in India must be conjectural; there is no record previous to
the Rig Veda, and in the Rig Veda it is recognized as an established
institution. . . .^

So in India the king was less than a god and less, in some ways,
than the Brahmans. Elsewhere, however, the king was godlike, but
in an age when the gods retained some very human characteristics
and failings. The idea of the king's sanctity still, for that matter,
survives.

But if ideas survive, men do not, and early history is full of the
efforts made to explain the death of a supposedly immortal Sun
King. In point of fact, the king often died before his time owing to a
drought or excess of rainfall which he might have averted but did not.
His office was not without its occupational risks. As recently, more-
over, as 1890, a Malayan Annual Report contains the statement that
a series of bad harvest had been attributed locally to the evil influence
of the British Resident. One way or another, then, the king even-
tually died. The situation could be met in several ways. It was possible,
first of all, to preserve his body and maintain firmly that he was still
alive. Next, it could be argued that he had become a god — that he
had been a god all along, in fact — and that he had returned to the
home of the gods. Lastly, it could be claimed that he had been re-
incarnated in his successor, who was in fact the same man but now
provided with a younger body.

Exactly how the Egyptians reasoned, who favoured the first of these
alternatives, may not be known. We know, however, that they buried
their kings with great care, producing the earliest joiners and brick-
makers for that special purpose. And they provided each dead king
with his food, weapons, furniture and toilet articles. Efforts of this
kind also included the elaborate methods of embalming by which
mummies were preserved and the even more elaborate masonry built
over the grave, initially, to prevent the treasure from being stolen.
With the Dynastic Egyptians monumental masonry became the chief
national industry. Something of the same treatment has been
accorded in many lands to the dead, and not only to the dead of
royal birth. Primitive peoples have funeral rites based clearly on the
belief that the spirit survives death. The Scandinavians gave their dead
leaders a Viking's funeral and the Chinese still burn at funerals the
pasteboard replicas of things — including motor-cars — which may be
needed in the next world. The custom is understandable and especially
so where royalty is concerned. The Incas of Peru were also preserved

' Indo- Aryan Polily, being a slitdy of the economic and political condition of India as
depicted in the Rig Veda. P. Basu. London, 1925. It is rash, however, to generalise too
confidently. See, for example, A History of Hindu Political Theories. V. Ghoshal.
Oxford, 1923. p. 228.

34 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

after death and periodically exhibited, and something of the same
practice lingers, it is said, in University College, London. The
deceased monarch is not really allowed to die.

The second theory, by no means inconsistent with the first, made
the king a god and not merely a descendant of the gods. The
Egyptian Osiris was thus a Deified King and the position was in-
herited by his Roman successors, Julius Caesar and Augustus, who
were deified when they died and thereafter worshipped. Nor have
other kings been without supernatural powers; the Emperor of
Japan, for example, being something more than a man. The theory
that deifies a king on his death inevitably makes him superhuman
even while he is alive. In many lands this attempt to invest the living
king with a godlike quality has made the monarch a sort of idol,
seen immobile on state occasions or possibly not seen at all. A
sufficiently rigid etiquette may make it almost immaterial whether
the idol is actually alive or dead.

The third alternative has been fully described in The Golden
Bough} and is again not inconsistent with the other two. The Egyp-
tians portrayed their kings with a minimum of individuality, their
sculptures depicting each as an impersonal image of kingship.

. . . There is a mystic communion between father and son at the
moment of succession, a unity and continuity of divine power which
suggests a stream in which the individual rulers come and go like
waves. ^

The whole process hinges on the moment of succession for which
some smooth organisation seems essential. It is vital to know before-
hand who the successor is to be and as vital to ensure that he is
actually present. The easiest way to provide for this is to fix the date
in advance, putting the old king to death at an agreed moment, with
his successor at hand. (Why should the old king object? His soul is
merely being transferred). This custom is closely connected with a
popular interest in the king's virility. It was always doubted whether
an old or ailing king could fulfil his main function of making the
crops grow. Better, surely, to kill him in good time. Kings were thus
despatched in Cambodia, Ethiopia, on the Congo and in other parts
of Africa. One way was to wait until his powers failed, as was done at
Shilluk on the White Nile. In Uganda, too, the King of Ankole was
never allowed to die of illness or age. 'As soon as his wives and
followers observed signs of weakness, the Mugabe was given a poison
which brought about his death'. ^ Another way was to allow him a

' The Golden Bough. Sir James Frazer. Chapter XXIV. p. 264 el seq. in the one-
volume edition.

' Kingship and the Gods. p. 35.
° African Political Systems, p. 156.

MONARCHY AMONG AGRICULTURAL PEOPLES 35

fixed term of office — twelve years in Calicut, nine years in Sweden,
eight years in Sparta and five years in Malabar. Yet another was for
the people to take action when they saw fit, as at Passier on the north
coast of Sumatra. The king's spirit then passed to his successor, who
might have to be present to catch his last breath. The successor might
be his eldest son or possibly the man (probably a relative) who killed
him. The succession, in any case, was instantaneous; as in England,
for example, it still is. Some kings eventually found means to die by
deputy. It was a policy which kings themselves may have been the
first to propose. In Siam the king thus died (by deputy) each year at
the end of April. In other instances the king would sacrifice a son as
his deputy; obviously a better equivalent. There are traces of this
custom in the Bible. It may have been a younger son who first
suggested that an animal would do instead. Originally, however, such
parodies of a godly custom would have been unacceptable. It has
been pointed out that the Egyptian mode of address to their kings
was not 'Majesty' but 'Embodiment' or 'Incarnation'.

. . . They are not merely respectful phrases but phrases which
emphasise that the earthly ruler incorporates an immortal god. The
names of the individual kings serve only to distinguish the successive
incarnations.^

It cannot be sufficiently emphasised at this point that the primary
functions of kingship, more especially in agricultural communities,
were essentially religious. The temptation is to rationahse the story
and explain that a king's leadership was necessary in war, or necessary
indeed for many other practical purposes. Bernard Shaw said that
rulers are so necessary

. . . that any body of ordinary persons left without what they call
superiors, will immediately elect them. A crew of pirates, subject to no
laws except the laws of nature, will elect a boatswain to order them
about and a captain to lead them and navigate the ship, though the
one may be the most insufferable bully and the other the most
tyrannical scoundrel on board. . . .^

Of modern society this may be true, but of primitive people it is
certainly wrong. Peoples like the Nuer of the Southern Sudan have
never appointed rulers. Nor have they, for any practical purpose,
felt the need of them.

On the other hand, the king, once provided for religious purposes,
was often found useful in other ways. Leadership in war was not
necessarily one of them. Kingship is almost certainly older than war.
Nor, for that matter, has command been invariably vested in the king

' Kingship and the Gods. p. 45.

- The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, etc. G. B. Shaw. p. 335.

36 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

even were he available and qualified. Thus we learn from the Old
Testament that when David proposed to lead his armies in person,
he was promptly overruled and told to stay at home.^ His first
practical functions were as Judge and Lawgiver, derived in true
succession from the patriarchal chief. At the root of all legal insti-
tutions is the basic discovery that a verdict (whether right or wrong)
is better than an endless quarrel. A common primitive method of
settling a dispute was by augur or ordeal, with much the same effect
as tossing a coin. The King's verdict might or might not be just but it
had at least the merit of being final. It was the voice of God. There
were kings, too, like Solomon, with as much reputation for justice
as for finality.

Kings were also lawgivers. Laws were many of them, originally,
generalisations based on legal judgments in particular cases. Osiris
taught the Egyptians agriculture, gave them laws, and instructed
them in the worship of the gods. One of the earliest legal codes known
dates from Babylon (2123-2081 B.C.) and is the work of a king and
god, Hammurabi, who expresses in it the determination to 'uphold
justice in the land', as befitted one who was 'High of purpose, great
King, a very sun in Babylon'.^ The functions of lawgiver and judge
were similarly identical in Egypt. 'During the period of the Old
Kingdom Egypt was governed by a strictly absolute monarchy. The
king was the sole legislator'.'^ And the laws, once issued, were the laws
of God.

In one other respect the king was extremely useful and that was in
representing the unity of the area he governed. This was particularly
important in Egypt, for example, where the Pharoah was always
separately King of Upper and Lower Egypt. It was, in fact, a dual
monarchy of which Horus and Seth were supposed to have been
rulers.* There were two separate administrations and two treasuries.
The Empire of the Incas was similarly called 'The-Four-in-One'. It
has been the function of many later monarchies to unite their terri-
tories in this way. Apart from that, the king, standing above the local
or patriarchal chiefs, symbolises his people as a whole. They express
their own unity in terms of their allegiance to him.

Of the fictions designed to explain the king's death, the third and
the most important implied the presence of an heir apparent. It was
natural, if only for that reason, that the king should be expected to
marry. This initially created a problem, for how could a common
person marry a god? The Egyptians overcame this diflficulty by

' II Samuel, 18, verses 2-4.

- Babylonian and Assyrian Laws and Contracts, (ed.) C. W. H. Johns. Edinburgh, 1904.
Quoted in Western Political Thought. John Bowie. London, 1947. pp. 30-31.
' The Legacy of Egypt. Ed. -S. R. K. Gianviile. Oxford, 1942.
^ Priests and Kings. H. Peake and H. J. Fleure. Oxford, 1927. p. 171.

MONARCHY AMONG AGRICULTURAL PEOPLES 37

making their king marry his sister, a goddess in her own right.
Exactly the same solution was found by the Incas in South America.
Among them, the Emperor, descended from the Sun God, married
his eldest sister and designated as his successor the ablest son by that
first and principal wife.^ In other parts of the world the problem was
simplified by the existence of other and adjacent kingdoms, allowing
the divinely descended king to marry the daughter of another king,
regarded for this purpose only as of almost equally divine descent.
So Solomon, we learn 'made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt,
and took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the city of
David"'^ — where, she was presumably annoyed to find, the palace was
not even finished. Such a practice brought with it the opportunity,
on occasion, of marrying the only child of another king and so ending
as ruler of two kingdoms instead of one. As against this interesting
possibility, marriage alliances might complicate foreign affairs in a
manner neither expected nor desired.

The marriage consummated, whether with a sister or a foreign
royalty, children might be expected to result, not merely the son
destined to succeed but other sons and daughters as well. These too
will marry, some of them inevitably with commoners, producing
children of partly royal descent. These are obvious candidates for
official office, for persons of semi-divine descent cannot be allowed to
starve or even to mingle on equal terms with the common people.
As time goes on, to be descended from the gods becomes necessarily
a characteristic of a wide and (widening) circle of relations. With a
king like Solomon on the throne (with seven hundred wi\es and three
hundred concubines) the process is likely to be accelerated. Should it
become necessary, moreover, to promote some able commoner to a
position higher than a minor royalty, he must be given a more than
equivalent rank — perhaps with that fictitious cousinship which an
English peerage still implies. The inference is that a monarchy by its
very nature must create a nobility.

The officials seem to have been originally relations of the royal
house. They stand apart as a class — the Royal Kinsmen. In other
words, those to whom power was delegated shared in some degree the
mysterious essence which differentiated the king from all men. . . .

As one of her main titles in the Old Kingdom the goddess of writing,
Sethat, had 'Mistress of the Archives of the Royal Kinsmen', which
would have been a kind of register of nobility, for no other hereditary
nobility existed. . . . There were no classes or castes in Egypt. All were

' Handbook of South American Indians. Ed. Julian H. Steward. VoL 2. The Andean
Civilisation. Washington, 1946. (Smithsonian Institute). See also The Origin and History
of Politics. W. C. MacLeod, New York, 1931. Chapter VI, pp. 213-220. These royal
brother-sister marriages were found elsewhere in the Andes from Darien to the south
of Peru.

' I Kings, verse 3.

38 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

commoners before the throne, except those in whose veins flowed
some trace of the royal blood, however diluted. . . . The Royal
Kinsmen would have formed a considerable class.
... It need not astonish us, therefore, to find Royal Kinsmen even in
minor posts in the provincial administration.^

Exactly the same thing happened in Peru except for the existence
there of other nobles. The result was a nobility of two grades, the
superior of which could trace their ancestry to a previous sovereign.
As the Peruvian kings were polygamous and quite capable of be-
getting up to two hundred children, the number of upper-grade nobles
was far from negligible. Much the same thing happened even in
societies far less advanced like that of the Zulu, in which the king was

. . . head by descent of the powerful aristocratic Zulu lineage which was
looked up to by all Zulu, and his position in the national organization
was strengthened, since tribes scattered through Zululand were ruled
by his close relatives, who were bound to him by strong kinship ties of
mutual assistance and by their common membership of the royal
lineage.-

In short, given a monarchy, a nobility is almost certain to follow.

However divinely sanctioned, the Sun King could not rule a larger
kingdom than the state of communications would allow. In an age of
undeveloped roads, the ideal kingdom lay along the banks of a
navigable river. The size of the kingdom depended essentially on the
length of the river. The kingdoms of Egypt, Mesopotamia and India
owed much of their importance to this. To develop a kingdom much
beyond these original limits was something of a technical achievement,
requiring perhaps (among other things) the art of writing. In the
meanwhile the river kingdom was almost certain to develop a capital
and this would bring with it a whole series of political needs, arising
not from religious belief but from practical necessity. Without
agriculture, however, no city, no civilisation, no village even, would
have been possible.

' Kingship and the Gods. H. Frankfort, pp. 52-53. See also Social Evolution. V.
Gordon Childe. London, 1951. p. 61, on the difference between the tombs of pharaohs
and nobles as contrasted with those of commoners.

- African Political Systems, p. 35.

CHAPTER II

Monarchy among Pastoral Peoples

SOME people became herdsmen just as others became cultivators.
There are vast stretches of Arabia, Palestine and Central Asia
which afford grazing at one time of the year but offer little or no
scope for agriculture. Peoples, therefore, who had domesticated
cattle, sheep, goats, camels and horses specialised in moving between
summer and winter pastures and in covering long distances where the
grass is scanty. In their way of life they differed sharply from the
cultivators, mainly in having no one settled home. Whereas the
agriculturalist lived in one place and prayed for the rain to come at
the proper time, the herdsman could go in search of it. His prayers
and his religion were not, therefore, identical with those of the culti-
vator. Politically too he was to develop on rather different lines.

We have seen that the tendency of the cultivator was to transfer his
loyalty from the family or kinship group to the unit of neighbourli-
ness, the village. The revolutionary nature of this change must not be
exaggerated. For one thing, the sense of neighbourhood must always
have been there in some degree. For another, the sense of kinship still
remained. Professor Lowie has pointed out that the two principles
existed in sixth century Athens and that Solon had merely to
strengthen the local tie as being politically more convenient.

. . . The basic problem of the state is thus not that of explaining the
somersault by which ancient peoples achieved the step from a govern-
ment by personal relations to one by territorial contiguity only. The
question is rather to show what processes strengthened the local tie
which must be recognised as not less ancient than the rival principle.^

While some would disagree with this, holding that the tie of kinship
is certainly the more ancient, it is at least true that the two principles
of association co-existed for a long time, and indeed co-exist to-day.
A Highland Scotsman's sense of loyalty to Clan Campbell or Mac-
donald might even now conceivably outweigh his local patriotism as
a municipal voter of Croydon. And while a village life may tend to
weaken the sense of kinship, a nomadic life must equally tend to
strengthen it.

Social anthropologists distinguish two forms of family relation-

' The Origin of the State. R. H. Lowie. New York, 1927.

39

40 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

ship; the transient bilateral family, which they term the kinship
system; and the grouping of persons by unilateral descent, which
they term the lineage system. Only the latter, they say, establishes
corporate units with a political function.^ The Clan, that is to say,
does not include relatives on the mother's side. It comprises only
persons with a male ancestor in common. Among nomadic peoples it
is the clan in this sense which attracts the loyalty felt by the cultivator
for his village.^ And the tribe, the political unit, is a group of clans,
bound to each other by blood and often divided from other clans by
blood-feuds. The Old Testament is essentially a tribal history and
although the New Testament depicts the Jews as settled agricul-
turalists, their tribal organization is still in existence and the descent
of each tribesman (as of Christ himself) is known.

The nomad has other characteristics besides his sense of kinship and
lineage. He measures wealth in terms of cattle or other stock and
wants few possessions unable to move on four legs. He is as unlikely
to collect ohjets cVart as is a modern traveller by air. His life includes
hardship but is one of relative leisure as compared with the life of the
peasant. His property is of a kind subject to natural increase and also
liable to a sudden diminution, creating a wide divergence in wealth
between those more and less fortunate. The owner of flourishing and
multiplying herds will need underlings to tend them. These he may
well recruit from among other nomads whose herds have perished
from disease or drought. The nomad's property may also be in-
creased or diminished by theft. He has reason, from time to time, to
covet some of the products of agriculture. He is, in general, an op-
ponent of civilisation.

As a settled life is favourable to civiMzation, so a nomadic life is the
reverse. ... By the very nature of their lives they are enemies of
building, which is the first step in civilization.*

Among pastoral peoples, kingship is likely to take a special form.
What is demanded of their king is leadership — the direction needed
by a people on the move.* An agricultural people cannot be led, for
they are static; but pastoral folk will call their king 'The Good
Shepherd', a title later adapted to Christian theology. It is hardly
possible for a king of this sort to become the almost invisible deity
behind palace doors. He has no palace. Leading in person, he must be
known to all, a man like other men but with greater knowledge and
wisdom. One way, incidentally, in which his knowledge and wisdom
might appear is in his greater wealth. The nomad who has gained

' See African Political Systems, p. 6.

- Primitive Society. R. H. Lowie. London, 1921. 3rd ed. 1949. p. 377.
■'Politics. Aristotle, (I), p. 1319.

' See Habitat, Economy and Society, a Geographical Introduction to Ethnology.
C. Daryll Forde. London; 1934. p. 408.

MONARCHY AMONG PASTORAL PEOPLES 41

some wealth by luck in breeding and raising stock will turn readily
to trade as a means of becoming wealthier still. But to be known as a
good judge of cattle and horses with a flair for finding the best route to
the best pasture at the right time is a very different thing from being a
deity. In general, the men who cross the desert and sleep beneath the
stars have an intense belief in their tribal god, as the Jews had in
Yahweh, but they are not much inclined to deify a man who sleeps
in the next tent.

The herdsmen whose migrations from one pasture to another are
all within a very limited area differ less from the cultivators than do
the herdsmen who have further to go. Indeed, there are pastoral
peoples who are largely settled in one place, only the shepherds being
truly migrant. Of those with great distances to cover, a majority lay
some sort of claim to specific pastures.

. . . The steppe-dwellers know how to make the best use of their
pastures ... all migrations are within the territory of the tribe, clan, or
family group, as the case may be, various parts of which are occupied
at different times and usually only for a short period. Even in the best
districts a move of five to ten miles must be made every few weeks.
The wanderings are never aimless. The pastoralists know where there
is water, and they often visit certain pastures at a particular season.
Many of the herders of Central Asia spend their winter in the val-
leys. . . . Their possession of horses has given them greater mobility
than many herders, and some of them wander several hundred miles
during a year.^

The greater distances travelled are essentially due to the domesti-
cation of camels and horses. Camels were known in Babylonia from
about 3000 B.C. but were not numerous until a century later. From
the beginning, camels were bred with a view to improving their
special qualities of endurance and speed. It has been pointed out that
'many a dromedary can boast a genealogy far longer than the
descendants of the Darley Arabian'.'^ The horse appears in Baby-
lonian records at about the same period as the camel but may have
been known in Mesopotamia before that. Horses may first have been
tamed and ridden in Turkestan, their use spreading thence to the
Iranian plateau and so to Babylon. They again were carefully bred,
their pedigrees being remembered, and their qualities developed. The
introduction of camels and horses produced not only a greater dis-
tinction between herdsmen and cultivators but also some differences
among the herdsmen themselves. Some were mounted and some were
not. In the desert, for example, the true nomad divides the human
race into two main categories, the Hayar, those who live in permanent

' From Hunter to Husbandman. J. W. Page. London, 1939. p. 99.

-In the Sahara. Canon Tristram. Quoted in From Hunter to Husbandman, p. 104.

42 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

houses and the Arab who dwell in black tents. The arabs are further
divided into the Shwayar, who live on the edge of the desert with
their flocks, and the Bedouins who breed camels and live for ten
months of the year in the desert.^

It has been observed that, in partly nomadic tribes, the nomads are
the more vigorous and independent of the members. 'The foremost
Shaikhs of the Abaidat, Hasa . . . etc., etc. . . . are all to be found
during the rains farther away in the steppe than most of their fellow-
tribesmen'.^

The diff"erences here described are not merely divergencies in
occupation. They represent, and have presumably always represented,
a series of social gradations. The tent-dweller despises the husband-
man. The Bedouin despises the mere Arab. And among the Bedouin
it soon appears that some tribes are superior to others. Thus we find,
in the Old Testament, that Saul, when chosen as king, protests 'Am I
not a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? And my
family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin?'^ The
relative status of the different tribes and families must have been
perfectly well known and scarcely a matter of dispute. Within each
tribe, moreover, there are strangers and fellow-travellers, regarded as
inferior to the tribesmen themselves. There must be a blacksmith, for
example, but he is more or less 'untouchable'. There are other
menials, camp-followers and slaves, of seven or more categories but
all socially beyond the pale. As against that, at the other extreme, the
office of chief is hereditary, most likely, in the senior fine but subject
to a necessary standard of ability, thus giving the elders of the tribe
a certain latitude in choosing one of those eligible by birth. It should
be observed, incidentally, that people interested in the pedigrees of
horses are likely to show a similar interest in the pedigrees of men.

The inequalities so far described as characteristic of nomadic
peoples are partly the result of good or bad fortune but more the
result of varying degrees of courage. The nomad who remains on the
fringe of the desert is withheld by timidity from claiming the higher
status that would accompany a greater spirit of enterprise. His lower
status is thus voluntarily assumed, at least in part, just as, among
seafaring peoples, the deep-sea mariner may look down upon the
fisherman who in turn despises the landsman; each being neverthe-
less content to remain what he is. Among nomad riders of the horse
or camel there arise, in addition, all the inequalities resulting from
mounts being worse or better and riders being more or less skilled
and daring.

' A Reader in General Anthropology. Carleton S. Coon. London, 1950. pp. 380-407.
" The Sanusi of Cyrenaica. E. E. Evans-Pritchard. Oxford, 1949. See Chapter II.
The Bedouin.

^ I Samuel 9, verse 21.

MONARCHY AMONG PASTORAL PEOPLES 43

That there is a hmit to the size of a pastoral group is manifest.
However nomadic in character, the group, clan or tribe has a well-
defined territory, the pastures in which will support no more than a
certain number of cattle, sheep or draught animals. When the pastures
are over-grazed, the herdsmen must either divide into smaller groups
or invade the pastures of another tribe. Disputes are likely to result
from either policy, and the Old Testament contains one careful
explanation of how one such quarrel arose: —

. . . And Abram was very rich in cattle . . . and Lot also, which went
with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. And the land was not
able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance
was great. . . . And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's
cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle. . . .^

The immediate solution in this instance was for Abram and Lot to
separate, Abram going to Canaan and Lot to the plain of Jordan;
but not every dispute would end as amicably, nor was that agreement
free from the risk that each of the two groups might become em-
broiled with another tribe.

There can be little doubt that it was the pastoral peoples who
proved most quarrelsome.

. . . The grain-grower is usually too much absorbed in cultivating his
land to have any interests outside it, and such fights as he indulges in
are not of his seeking. Though the most peaceful and long-suflFering
of men, they resent ravages on their fields, and even in quite early
days seem to have come to blows with the pastoral tribes on their
borders, whose beasts invaded and devoured their growing crops.
We have a hint of one such episode in the story of Cain and Abel,
told by the partisans of the latter, so that in the story a? it has reached
us no mention is made of the damage done by AbeFs sheep among the
crops of Cain. . . .'

It is probably an exaggeration to assert that agricultural peoples are
invariably peace-loving, but it is clear that pastoral peoples have
more occasion for dispute, both among themselves and also with their
more settled neighbours. There might be competition for the earliest
grass in spring or the latest grass in autumn. There might be strife
over a spring or a well. There might, finally, be a season of drought
during which the crops of the cultivator would become a standing
temptation.

It is not pastoralism and cultivation as such that face each other in
hostility, but mobility with poverty as against sessile and vulnerable
wealth. . . .

' Genesis 1 3, verse 2.

■ Early Steps in Human Progress. Harold Peake. London, 1933. p. 229.

44 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITrCAL THOUGHT

The essential point, so far as relations with cultivators are con-
cerned, is that a pastoral people, especially if equipped with riding
animals, has a superior mobility which, although it may at a given
time be latent, is always there as an asset when there is opportunity for
gain, and equally when there is need for retreat. . . ^

It was most probably among the pastoral peoples that conflict first
began on such a scale as to merit the name of war. And war, when it
came, had a great influence on the institution of Monarchy.

' Habitat, Economy and Society, a Geof;rapl.ical Introduction to Ethnology. C. Daryll
Forde. London, 1934. pp. 405-407.

CHAPTER III

The Implications of War

THERE are reasons, as we have seen, for supposing that war
originated among the nomads. ProbabiHties apart, moreover,
it was commonly believed in ancient times that this was so. Aristotle
points out that 'A pastoral people is the best trained for war, sturdy
in physique and used to camping out'.^ Even more to the point, an
Arab historian writes as follows: —

Since conquests are achieved only by dash and daring, a people
accustomed to the nomadic life and the rough manners engendered by
the desert can readily conquer a more civilized people, even though
the latter be more numerous and equally strong in communal spirit. . . .
Having no country where they live in the enjoyment of plenty, they
have no tie to bind them to their birthplace. All lands alike seem good
to them. Not content with lordship among their own folk and over
their neighbours, they overpass the bounds of their country to invade
distant lands and subdue their inhabitants. . . .-

All this is true enough; and if we go further and ask what are the
special qualities of a good soldier we shall find that the qualities of
the nomad are much the same. We would instance physical toughness,
physical courage, laziness (with a capacity for energy when needed),
the ruthlessness which comes, somehow, from a life of movement in
the open air,^ no tendency to be homesick, a certain cunning but no
excess of brains, a great care for horses but none for standing crops or
buildings, a robust common sense, a singleness of purpose and a
strictly limited imagination — all these are the qualities of the nomad.
If there were no other evidence shedding light on the origins of war,
we could still say that the nomadic peoples had the character, the
means and the motive.

War, as opposed to inter-tribal bickering, depends upon transport
facilities. The peoples of Babylon and Sumeria had the camel, the ass
and the wheeled vehicle by some period round about 3000 B.C.
Although Sargon of Agade's conquest of Sumeria (perhaps round
about 2750 B.C.) is the first large-scale war of which we have record,

' Politics. 1. p. 1319.

- In Quest of Civilization. Ronald Latham. London, 1946.

^ As Kinglake remarks in Eothen. See Kinglake's Eothen. Ed. by D. G. Hogarth.
London, 1925. p. 28.

45

46 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

it is probable that there were previous wars among the Semitic
tribes of Syria and Arabia.^ But while an army of nomad or partly
nomad origin, with driven herds of cattle, sheep and goats, and with
vehicles drawn by oxen or asses, has sufficient mobility for war, its
speed remains pedestrian. The acceleration of war begins with the
introduction of the horse.

The horse in earliest use was the tarpan, a small animal of the
Shetland pony type, found wild in the steppe country between the
Dnieper and the Altai.- These had been domesticated and saddled
by 2500 B.C. and were in use from the Caucasus to the Indus Valley.
They gave an added mobility in war but were too small to mount a
heavily equipped rider. They began to prove their real value when they
replaced the ass in drawing the war-chariot. By means of the chariot,
four horses (or more) could be made to carry two men, one of them
heavily armed. The dreaded war-chariot (of which the first descrip-
tion dates from 2000 B.C.) spread as a standard weapon of war from
the steppe country to Mesopotamia, Assyria, Persia, India, Tibet,
China and Europe. The Babylonians learnt to respect the 'wild ass of
the mountains' and the pastoral Amorites, who centred their empire
on Babylon, used their war chariots to invade and conquer Egypt in
about 2100 B.C., setting up there a new dynasty of the Hyksos
or 'shepherd kings'. What impressed the Egyptians (to whom the
horse was a novelty) was the speed with which the campaign
ended.

God was adverse to us, and there came out of the East in an extra-
ordinary manner men of ignoble race, who had the temerity to invade
our country, and easily subdued it by force without a battle.
(Manetho).^

Once the Egyptians had learnt how to use horse-drawn war-
chariots, they regained their freedom in about 1600 B.C.

The next stage in the development of the horse was apparently the
crossing of the tarpan with another breed of horse, perhaps native to
Libya or Persia.^ A type of horse was eventually produced which
could be ridden to battle (though not at first into battle) by a single
archer. For centuries, meanwhile, both chariots and horsemen were
to be seen on the battlefield. The earliest known detailed account of a
battle relates to that of Megiddo in about 1479 B.C. The conflict was
between Thothmes III of Egypt and a group of Asian princes gathered
in Palestine. We have the account of a council of war, an advance by

' Wars of Sumer and Akkad are supposed to have taken place in about 2961 b.c.
See Priests and Kings. H. Peake and H. J. Fleure. Oxford, 1927. p. 48.

- Communicalion has been established. A.J. H. Goodwin. London, 1937. See Chapter
.3, esp. pp. 47-48.

^ Ancient History of the Near East. p. 214.

' See Empire and Comnninications. Prof. H. A. Innis. Oxford, 1950.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF WAR 47

the obvious and therefore unexpected route, a deployment before
battle, the engagement and victory, the pursuit and the capture of
Megiddo itself. Before the battle the King overruled his captains and
led the army in person, his troops following 'horse behind horse'.
When the battle was joined the King fought 'in a chariot of electron,
arrayed with his weapons of war, like Horus, the Smiter, lord of
power'.' The enemy (not unnaturally) fled 'abandoning their horses
and their chariots of gold and silver'. When the walled town of
Megiddo fell as a consequence of the victory, the loot included 924
chariots, 200 suits of armour, flocks and herds, and the reaping of the
local harvest. From this narrative it is apparent that fighting strength
was counted in chariots, that the leaders at least had elaborate
armour, that the king might command in person and that the God
Horus had become a God of War.

The Old Testament account of Pharaoh's pursuit of the Israelites
dates from a rather later period but presents a similar picture.
Pharaoh had horsemen in addition to his 600 chariots but the
Israelites had neither.- They evidently fought at this period under a
considerable disadvantage, being told to make the best of it. 'When
thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses and
chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them . . . .'^
This sort of exhortation remained familiar to them during the time of
Saul and David — the Philistines being able to muster 30,000 chariots
and 6,000 horsemen^ — and it was not until the time of Solomon
(c. 960 B.C.) that the Israelites were similarly equipped with horses
purchased in Egypt. They could then muster 1,400 chariots and 12,000
horsemen.^ At the end of the captivity in Babylon the Jewish tribes-
men numbered over 42,000 but could muster only 736 horses and
435 camels as against nearly 7,000 asses and mules. Horses were
evidently reserved for war. The Assyrian army included mounted
archers in 800 B.C. but each of these needed a groom to hold the
horse's bridle while the bow was drawn — a loss both of mobility and
man-power. No horseman used a weapon other than a bow; nor,
without a stirrup, would this have been possible.

The technique of chariot warfare seems to have been much the
same everywhere. One man fought and the other managed the
horses.

And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the King of
Israel between the joints of the harness; wherefore he said unto the

^ Ancient History of the Near East. pp. 236-239.
' Exodus. 14.

' Deuteronomy, 20, which comprises the Jewish Field Service Regulations of the
period.

' To quote the war correspondents of the defeated side.

= I Kings. 10. David had a hundred chariots only. See II Samuel 8, verse 4.

48 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

driver of his chariot, Turn thine hand, and carry me out of the host;
for I am wounded. . . .^

In India, according to one authority, the king drove the chariot
himself, but this was apparently to make room for his principal
religious adviser whose prayers had to accompany every process
from harnessing the horses to shooting off his arrows.'' We learn that
some chariots of later design carried a crew of three, which would
certainly be advisable so long as a chief Brahman had to be one of
them. Chariots are mentioned frequently in the Iliad. They were used
for war in places as distant from each other as China and Britain.
Before they could be replaced by real cavalry, two further steps in
progress were necessary. First of these was the breeding of larger
horses. Second of these was the invention of the stirrup.

The breed of horses was improved mainly by the Arabs but the
stirrup was apparently invented in China. It was the people of Ch'in
or Ts'in, living in the mountains of the upper Hoang-Ho, who first
acquired horses to ride and iron weapons instead of bronze. They
conquered the rest of China without much difficulty between 350 and
220 B.C. and established an empire in which good roads and fast
horses played an important part. It was not, however, until long
afterwards, in the sixth century a.d. that the use of the stirrup spread
from China to the Middle East, transforming all warfare and making
cavalry supreme on the battlefield for many centuries to come.^
Given stirrups, the horseman could fight without dismounting, taking
the shock of battle, wielding the sword and then the lance. Behind
the whole epic of the Crusades there lies a story of horse-breeding
and horsemanship. From it there emerges the idea of chivalry.
Europeans have tended to assume that the Saracens learnt the eti-
quette of war from the Crusaders. This is the reverse of the truth. The
custom of sparing the disarmed, the wounded, the unhorsed, the
women and children comes essentially from the desert peoples of the
Arab type.

There are peoples who after a fight spare their defeated adversaries
without enslaving them. The different tribes of the Arab stock have the
reputation of showing their enemies remarkable clemency after a
victorious fight. Regarding the Bedouins of the Euphrates it is said
to be the property of the enemy and not his person which is the object
of the fighting. The person of the enemy is sacred when disarmed or
dismounted; and prisoners are neither enslaved nor held to other
ransom than their mares.* This purpose is attained by merely dis-

' I Kings, 22.

■ The VecUc Age. Ed. by R. C. Majumdar. London, 195 L p. 484.

' Communication has been established. A. J. H. Goodwin. London, 1937. p. 48 et. seq.

' Among the steppe tribes, the leaders used to ride geldings but the custom in the
Middle East was different, the warrior riding a mare, his followers having geldings,
mules or asses. See p. 50. Communication has been established. A. J. H. Goodwin.
London, 1937.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF WAR 49

mounting or wounding the enemy. The latter's arms and mare become
the property of the victor, and he himself is then let go. ... It is
contrary to the Arab conscience to extinguish a kabila (tribe). . . .'

The customs of the Ruala Bedouins were not necessarily those of
all Arabs nor were they displayed, of necessity, towards those not of
Arab stock. Thus Jeremiah wrote of the nomads 'They lay hold on
bow and spear; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice roareth
like the sea and they ride upon horses'.^ It was strictly towards other
horsemen that their clemency was shown and chivalry is strictly the
right word for it. But chivalry, in the sense of sparing opponents, is
clearly a desert attitude of mind, closely connected with desert laws
of hospitality. The main enemy (as well as friend) is the desert itself,
as against which, in its more dangerous aspect, all are allied. The host
who shares his provisions with a stranger may soon afterwards be
himself the guest. And where all tribesmen are running similar risks
there is a fellow feeling for others whose predicament is the same and
an equally shared contempt for those who are running no risk at all.
Similar customs are found among sailors and mountaineers. The
rescue of survivors at sea has always extended, in some degree, to
rivals or opponents; and even a hostile seaman deserves more respect
than the mere landlubber. In similar fashion, the cavalry elite of an
army which includes a despised infantry (not to mention mere camp-
followers) has much in common with the cavalry on the other side."^
The fighting may be real enough but will tend to fall short of total
warfare. Neither group will fight to the point of mutual extermination
for all are agreed that a future battle, without cavalry, would be no
better than a vulgar brawl.

With these origins and aspects of war clearly in mind we shall find
that the political implications of war are not far to seek. To begin
with, war demands leadership. Among pastoral peoples the leader-
ship is already there. In an agricultural land, ruled by a king of mainly
religious and ceremonial importance, the leader must be found.
Either the king must descend from his pedestal and assume a different
kind of power (losing his godlike aloofness in the process) or else
another leader must be appointed, assuming an authority which a
king might view with some alarm. There are instances of either policy
being preferred but seldom has the need for a single leader been
seriously questioned. In war, as people realised from the beginning,
it is usually better to decide something, even mistakenly, than to argue

' The Origin of the Inequality of the Social Classes. G. Landtman. London, 1938. p. 3.

-Jeremiah, 6, verse 23.

' The Indians, in estimating the strength of an army counted one chariot as equal to
one elephant, three cavalry-men or five infantry. The Indian rules of warfare also
enjoined the soldier to spare the timid, the intoxicated, the insane, the negligent, the
unprepared, the aged, women, children and Brahmans. To this list Gautama is said to
have added ambassadors and cows.

50 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

for long as to what is best. So the first effect of war is to transform
the character of kingship. The king who leads his army in person
becomes something less than a god but gains enormously in actual
authority; provided always that the war is, or can be made to appear,
victorious. The king who, like David 'stood by the gate side, and all
the people came out by hundreds and by thousands'/ might the
better survive defeat but would lose much executive power in the
course of the war. After victory he might well have to listen to his
subjects cheering someone else.

The next implication of war concerns rather the people themselves.
For they gain in war a sense of unity, born of common fears and
hatreds, strengthened by common privations, efforts, disasters and
triumphs. The king is made the symbol of that unity but, in his
absence, (and he could not be everywhere) the sense of unity finds
expression in his flag or standard. At the same time the fortification
of cities strengthens a local sense of unity. And walled cities, being
more compact and defined, become more urban in character; further
removed from the rural and more self-consciously civilised.

With this new emphasis, however, on group loyalties, tribal or
local, comes the growth of class distinctions. Monarchy creates a
nobility in any case but it is war that adds to its numbers, prestige and
influence. An army must be officered and not solely by the king's
relatives. There will grow up, during a war, a class of nobles whose
authority is based not upon religion, magic, seniority or birth but
upon experience, ability, determination and courage. These nobles
are to be distinguished from the common people by their superior
arms and armour, by their chariots and, at a later date, by their
horses. The fact of being mounted makes a revolution in outlook both
in the rider and in his inferiors. The horseman is higher from the
ground, sees farther, travels faster. The change in outlook might
almost be compared with that brought about when man first stood on
his hind legs. The horseman is literally looked up to. He in turn
literally looks down upon other folk, and over them towards things
more remote. He feels more than his unmounted self and, even when
he is on foot, his boots, breeches and spurs have about them a
fingering hint of authority, daring and privilege. He enjoys more
respect than envy for even in time of peace he takes more risks than
humbler folk are always ready to incur. Hence, in many languages,
the word for horseman has much the same significance as 'gentle-
man'. The Roman Equestrian had a certain rank in society. Since
then we have Knight, Knecht, Cavalier, Chevalier, Caballero and
other such titles. Even in the British army, riding boots, leggings and
spurs lingered for a time after horses had become scarce. Even in

' II Samuel, 18, verse 4.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF WAR 51

India jodhpurs are worn by statesmen and diplomatists whose duties
are, in fact, sedentary. And if modern drivers of tanks still insist upon
their theoretical status as cavalrymen, the riding boot played a still
greater part among the non-riding adherents of Mussolini and
Hitler.

From war is derived the epic, the saga, the tale of heroism. While
it was the King (beyond question) who terrified the enemy and won
the battle, other men sometimes distinguished themselves; occasion-
ally, even, when the king was not there. They behaved, it became
clear, in a godhke manner. So they must, it seems, be gods or des-
cendants of the gods. Thus there developed a new source of nobility.
These god-descended heroes — whose deeds, recorded in song and
verse, lost nothing in the telling — these men who had slain lions,
tigers, dragons and giants — were not to be confused henceforth with
the common herd. And if they were descended from the gods, other
people were descended from them. While some men's reputations
might suffer during a war, others rose to the status of the god-des-
cended, the equestrian, the noble.

Other poHtical implications of war include the subordination of
women and efforts to ensure their chastity in the absence of warrior
husbands and in the presence of other warriors whose administrative
duties have kept them out of the actual fighting. Nor must we forget
that the capture of prisoners creates or extends the institution of
slavery. War also induces people to copy each other, and more
especially the enemy, whose uniform and equipment is always
superior. From war, finally, we inherit a grisly legacy of taxation.
Horses, chariots and arms have to be paid for. Taxes bring with them
all the attendant horrors of arithmetic, estimates, assessments and
accounts. War is thus accompanied by and largely responsible for a
vastly more complicated administration. Maps must be drawn and
distances estimated. Someone must calculate what provision to make
for so many men and horses over a given number of days. Someone
must discover how many men are sick and how many still on parade.
People must be taught something of elementary hygiene, invented
probably by Moses. War, if successful, will imply the conquest of new
territory with consequent problems of distance, communications,
fortification, military government and taxes. And the wider the area
conquered the more complex its administration will become.

In administration the basic need is for writing. The first cuneiform
writing was apparently the invention of the Sumerians in about
3500 B.C. The Egyptian hieroglyphic existed, however, before 3000
B.C. Chinese writing may date from 2000 b.c. or thereabouts and is the
only pictorial writing still used. There are obvious limitations to the
value of any ideographic script and the great step forward (after that

52 THE KVOl UTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

of writing itself) was the invention of the phonetic alphabet of twenty-
two letters, at first without the vowels. This was the North Semitic
alphabet, probably invented in Syria between 2000 and 1500 B.C.;
the script from which, via the Phoenicians, the Greek and Roman
alphabets derived. The later and more effective method of writing
dates from the period during which wars became fashionable and
from the area in which some of the earliest recorded campaigns took
place. This may be coincidence. It is worth recalling, however, that
administration, writing and bureaucracy are all closely connected
with each other and that the earlier (and more difficult) writing tends
to remain the accomplishment of a priestly class to which admin-
istrative work might often fall, if one result of war might be to estab-
lish or strengthen a nobility of the sword, another result might well be
to establish a second nobility — of the pen.

CHAPTER IV

Monarchy and Nationalism

WE have traced authority in human affairs to the elder person,
the parent, the patriarch of a family group, the chief of a
tribe. We have seen that the authority of the chief is sometimes
paralleled by the authority of the magician or priest. There is reason,
we have found, to suspect that kingship arises, in agrarian states,
from one person managing to combine the powers of chief and
magician. In pastoral societies we have noted a different conception
of kingship, based upon the powers of a chief who is essentially a
leader of men, not aloof and godlike but active, skilful, well-mounted
and rich. War arises and leads, not infrequently, to the less warlike
peasants being attacked by the nomads. A nomad conquest of an
agrarian people is a fairly common event, the result being to impose
pastoral rulers upon an agricultural society. Egypt provides perhaps
the classic example of this; and there, as elsewhere, the views (on
monarchy) of the conquered proved more important, in the long run,
than the views of the conquerors. Like the Roman Emperors who
later assumed the same office, the Shepherd Kings found themselves
stiffening into the hieratic attitude apparently expected of them.
Something like mummification set in even while the king lived. And
it was Egypt that provided a pattern of monarchy for the rest of the
world.

Monarchy, as thus established and spread afterwards by conquest
or imitation, comprised four distinct elements. The king had,
basically, the paternal authority of the tribal or district chief; he was
the arbitrator in cases of dispute, the father of his people. To this he
had added the authority of the priest, the god-descended immortal,
the embodiment of god and (finally) the god on earth. But if the king
himself came of a pastoral and nomadic people, he would also be the
active leader, administrator and judge. If, finally, his power had been
established and maintained by war, he would be the supreme com-
mander in the field, experienced, skilful, daring and, above all,
victorious. It is fairly clear that monarchy reaches its purest form when
a king contrives to accumulate and retain all these different powers,
paternal, religious, active and warlike. It is at least equally clear that
these different functions are partly inconsistent with each other. The
active leader in matters of policy is not the ideal arbitrator in matters

53

54 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

of dispute. The enthroned king, immovable under the weight of
crown and robes, high above his prostrate court, would seem in-
congruous in the tented field. The war leader, on the other hand, can
scarcely exact a religious veneration from comrades who know him
to be a man like themselves. Kings who have striven for the maximum
authority have sought to strike a balance between their several roles,
the predominant role being decided in part by personality but more
perhaps by the nature of the problem they had to solve.

Vital to this problem is the factor of distance. When an empire is
vast and varied, it was literally impossible (before the era of tele-
vision) for the king to make himself personally known, as judge and
leader, to any considerable number of his subjects. Even if he did,
he would return from his travels to find that actual power had fallen
(perhaps irrevocably) into the hands of a minister, secretary or
brother. To maintain personal rule over a large empire the king would
have to be everywhere at once. As this was impracticable for a man,
the king had to make himself a god, present in spirit wherever his
altar might be set up. Perhaps the most long-lived of monarchies
have been of this type, gaining in permanence for what they may have
lost in vitality. The tendency is, however, for such a monarchy to lose
all but nominal power, especially during a king's minority, and turn
gradually into an elaborate pageant behind which the actual govern-
ment is done by others. A king who sees the danger of this may choose
rather the role of military leader, keeping the substance of power and
resigning something of the shadow. By the end of a life spent on the
threatened frontiers, he too will find that the central administration
has been taken over by someone else. The final experiments in
monarchy tend to show that a large and diverse empire requires a
more or less deified king, and that the kings most successful in
retaining real authority have ruled over smaller and more compact
areas; the sort of territories exemplified in the modern national
state.

Perhaps the best example of a successful monarchy established over
a wide area and yet wielding considerable powers can be taken from
the history of China. Here the process was assisted by a measure of
geographical unity and isolation, without which stability might have
been more difficult to maintain. China, at any rate, aff'ords the spec-
tacle of a semi-deified monarchy wielding eff'ective power over diverse
peoples and for considerable periods of time. Chinese civilisation had
developed in a China of conflicting states, no one of which mastered
the rest until about 200 B.C. The Ch'in or Ts'in people, who first
learnt to ride and use iron weapons, were reorganised as a centralised
monarchy as from about 350 B.C. and found no other state capable
of prolonged rivalry. 'To a steel tool of extreme precision was

MONARCHY AND NATIONALISM 55

opposed a corrupt mass of crumbling states torn by internecine
strife'.^ Shih Huang-Ti made himself emperor, assumed a divine title,
abolished the feudal states, reorganised China into thirty-six
Provinces (to which four more were added later), standardised
calligraphy, weights and measures, constructed a system of imperial
roads and burnt all books that were not officially approved. The
Ts'in Dynasty was actually shortlived but its central organisation
was taken over by Wu Ti and eventually, after a period of disorder,
by the T'ang Dynasty (a.d. 618-906) and the Ming Dynasty (a.d.
1368-1644). Despite internal troubles and the 'Dark Ages' of a.d.
220-589, China has tended to be a centralised empire under a single
king. From the third century B.C. until 1912 the sacred monarch had
theoretically absolute sovereignty, unlimited by law. In practice
there were considerable changes but in form the government was very
stable and highly organised. Successive monarchs had evolved a
personal absolutism designed to guard against usurpation by a
relative, a servant or eunuch, a noble or a provincial governor.
Supreme religious, executive, judicial and military powers were all
vested in the emperor himself. All the influences of literature, educa-
tion, inspection and doctrine were organised in support of the imperial
throne. And yet further stability was achieved by a deliberate absten-
tion from foreign affairs or military conquest. The Great Wall of
China symbolises a consistent policy of seeking unity and permanence
within a defined and limited area. The price paid for stability was in
terms of mental stagnation — such a stagnation as probably charac-
terised the monarchy of Egypt.

It would be wrong, however, to conclude from this that the
Chinese have made no contribution to political thought or practice.
It is true that their ministerial and provincial administration was
similar to that of other empires, although more efficient than most, but
they also invented selection of officials by competitive examination
together with a system of inspection and of ascertaining the views of
the public. Strictly subordinating military to civilian officers, they
chose both on the basis of written examinations. Boys began their
education at the age of five or six, spent four or five years in practising
calligraphy and memorising a dozen classic works. The more apt for
study were allowed to enter for a district examination. In this the
candidates (perhaps about 2,000 in each district) would spend a night
and a day in composing two essays and a poem. Perhaps about twenty
out of the 2,000 would be awarded the first degree. These privileged
few, now exempt from taxes or corporal punishment and indeed
from the magistrate's authority, spent three years in the district
academy before attempting the provincial examination, held every

'^ Short History of Chinese Civilization. Richard Wilhelm. London, 1929. p. 157.

56 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

third year and lasting three sessions of three days each. Theoretically
the candidates might have numbered 50,000 but not all stayed the
course.

In the first session he was required to produce three essays; one on a
subject from the Analects, one from the Chang Yung (Doctrine of the
Mean), and one from the Ming Tzu (Works of Mencius). He must also
compose a poem of eight couplets. In the second session the candidate
wrote five essays, one from each of the Five Classics; and in the third
session, five essays on the art of government, supporting his statements
with reference to great historic ideas. His originality was shown in his
application of these ideas to the problems given. ^

it was not an examination in which originality, beyond a certain
point, was likely to pay. Of those competing (17,000 to 3,000, accord-
ing to the population of the province) from 184 to 52 were awarded
the second degree. These worked for one more year and then took the
third and highest examination at the imperial capital. This was of one
session, during which the candidate wrote an essay on a current
political problem - irrigation, currency, education or the like. Some
300 candidates were then awarded the third and highest degree, the
top three in merit having special honours and the best of all being
noted as a likely future Minister. Of the 300 'chin-shih' or achieved
scholars, a third were given academic posts, two thirds admitted to the
civil service.

From the Emperor's point of view, this system of recruitment had
great advantages. Worked fairly, it excluded nepotism, favouritism
and influence. It allowed no unfair preponderance to any one
province nor even to any one class of society. It was strictly an exam-
ination in a literature which the Emperor approved. Even, however,
on general principles, the system had much to commend it. It
excluded the mediocre and stupid. It excluded, above all, those who
lacked the stamina to go on. It has been claimed, and with justice,
that these examinations afforded a moral as well as an intellectual
test.- Their value was recognised and the principle copied successively
by the East India Company (in 1832), the English- Civil Service
(1853) and the Indian Civil Service (1855).=^ One might add that the
later improvements on the competitive system have been manifestly
less efficient.

At the same time, the limitations of the Chinese system are obvious.
To arrive at an absolute order of merit, all candidates must take the
same examination. This in itself excluded from public life all whose

' China. Ed. by H. F. MacNair. California, 1946. See also Government and Politics of
China. Ch'ien Tuang Sheng. Harvard, 1950. pp. 22-23.

■ See Hs'iintze, the Moulder of Confucianism. H. H. Dubs. London, 1927. p. II.
'' China, op. cit. Chap. XXX by Teng Ssu-Yii. p. 449.

MONARCHY AND NATIONALISM 57

abilities were other than Hterary; the lawyer, the mathematician, the
scientist, the merchant, the explorer, the seaman and the soldier.
Only classical learning was considered and the student was invited
to memorise, elucidate, comment upon and versify round the
accepted ideas comprised in a fairly narrow reading. He was not
encouraged to think for himself. His final accomplishment, moreover
(for all practical purposes) was in reading and writing, versifying and
quoting from the classics. It is the point at which higher education
should begin rather than finish. One might add, finally, that the
system of taking the clever boy from a poor family and giving him
high office as a result of his examination marks, was not without its
dangers in a society where family loyalties were so deeply-rooted.
The official could hardly be illiterate but he might easily prove
dishonest.

As against corruption, however, the Chinese had another device.
This was the Board of Censors, established under the T'ang Dynasty
and comprising two Censors-General and two Deputies; with sub-
ordinates both in the imperial capital and in the Provinces.^ Members
of this Board served a dual purpose. They were to act as a check on
officialdom. They were also to ascertain the trend of public opinion
and remonstrate with the Emperor on the subject of any act or
policy they considered either unwise or unpopular. They were gen-
erally more successful in exposing corruption than in remonstrating
with an infallible Emperor. They represent, nevertheless, an important
Chinese contribution to political practice. The Chinese monarchy
owed much of its stability to the system of examinations and as much
again perhaps to this official inspectorate.

For much of the history of China the Emperor did in fact rule. But
examples are fairly common of monarchs, similarly empowered,
being gradually relegated to purely religious and ceremonial duties.
Of these examples one of the best is afforded by Japan. Here, in
Yamato, as it was then called, a group of tribes came successively
under the influence of China, circa a.d. 214, and of Buddhism, a.d.
500-600. There followed, in a.d. 645, a revolution called 'The Great
Change' in the course of which two reformers — Naka, a prince of the
Imperial Clan, and Kamatari, a noble — reorganised Japan on Chinese
lines; weakening the nobles, disarming the populace and strengthen-
ing the central government. Tribal chiefs were deprived of their lands
and then reinstated as salaried officials. Examinations were intro-
duced with a new hierarchy of rank, a diff'erent system of taxation,
and an improved system of communications. A new capital was
founded at Nara and the country's name changed to Nippon.

' The Government and Politics of China. Ch'ien Tuan-Sheng. Harvard, 1950. pp. 38,
39.

58 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

But while the powers of tribal chieftains had been, in general,
curtailed, one clan had gained considerably in power and that was
Kamatari's clan, the people who had brought the revolution about.
Kamatari was granted estates called Fujiwara and this name was now
given to a family destined to retain political power, behind a nominal
Emperor, for many generations to come. For a moment it seemed that
the Emperor might lose even his religious position under Buddhist
domination but the Fujiwara resisted this movement (in its political
aspect) and moved their Emperor to a new capital at Kyoto, away
from the monastic influences at Nara. Thenceforward, until the
nineteenth century, the functions of the Sacred Emperor were almost
entirely ceremonial. The Fujiwara technique was to marry their
daughters to the Emperors, rule while the Emperor was young and
compel him to abdicate and enter a monastery if he showed signs of
initiative, replacing him by another youngster, probably married to
another daughter.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of this nominal Monarchy
was the system by which the nobles, dispossessed of their local
powers, were consoled by official sinecures and salaries. In the ninth
century there were eight Ministries of State, each with anything up to
eighteen departments, employing over 6,000 officials in the capital
alone. ^ The departments included 'Bureau of Divination', 'Office of
Imperial Mausolea', 'The Palace Women's Office' and the 'Utensils
and Crockery OflRce'. As these and many others had to be staff"ed
by people of good family, one cannot but see in them a Fujiwara
device for keeping other people (the Emperor included) out of
mischief. It succeeded, apparently, for about four hundred and fifty
years.

As contrasted with monarchies which originally had (and in some
instances retained) all the elements of both secular and religious
power, India presents an example of monarchies in which the ele-
ments were never fully combined. For the institution of Caste in
India, whatever its origin, seems to antedate the idea of monarchy.
When the king came to power, the Brahman was already there and
able to deny him religious supremacy. More than that, society had a
structure which the king was powerless to modify, religions over
which he had little control, laws which he did not originate and
customs by which he might even be bound. Of early Indian history
remarkably little is known, but it left the kingdoms of the Indus and
the Ganges with Caste, with the Vedic cult, and with a nobility
deriving their descent from previous invaders. There is evidence of
earlier political experiments but, in historical times, it was evidently
assumed that a society as diversified as that of India required mon-

' The Pageant of Japanese History. M. M. Dilts. New York, 1938. New ed. 1947.

MONARCHY AND NATIONALISM 59

archical power to give it any coherence at all. Nor was a king likely to
find the task an easy one.

Caste was the division of society into five main hereditary groups:
the Brahman or priestly and literate Caste, the Warrior Caste, the
Farmer and Trader Caste, the Working Caste and the Slaves or
Untouchables.

The superiority of the Brahman caste is a basic tenet of Hindu
religion.

Ancient India, so far as the Brahman caste presents it in its own
literature, is a theocracy, in which no human power can rightfully
counterbalance the authority of those living gods, the Brahmans.
Nothing has been left undone by orthodoxy to provide an immovable
foundation for the pre-eminence of the priesthood which holds the
Vedic cult in its hands over the whole of Indian society.

This traditional point of view expresses a theory rather than the
actual reality of things. . . .^

That Brahmin pre-eminence is more apparent in Brahmin literature
than in the history of India as drawn from other sources must be
strictly true. Nevertheless, the Brahmins, if not always as powerful as
they would have liked to be, were in a position to deny the king a part
of that authority to which he might otherwise have aspired. The king
was of the Warrior Caste and, although no doubt descended from the
gods, found his power limited in more directions than one. 'Who
will not obey the command of the person that quickly does, sees,
hears, knows, causes to shine and protects everything, since he is
born out of the essence of all deities?' (Brihatparasara).^ The
question, although rhetorical, might nevertheless be answered with
the words 'A Brahman, who considers himself of a higher caste'. As
against that, caste also made monarchy more secure.

Based originally upon a desire to avoid racial contamination (a
prejudice which the British learnt in India at a later stage) the caste
system effectively prevented the concentration of power in any one
hand. But this handicap, limiting the king's authority, applied still
more to everyone else. As Beni Prasad observes :

. . . caste distributed the brain power, the fighting power and the
wealth of the community among different sections, and prevented
that combination of intellectual, martial and economic strength which
led to aristocratic regime in ancient Greece. Apart from the monarch,
a Hindu ruling class could wield influence rather than power.^

' Ancient India and Indian Civilization. Paul Masson-Oursel and others. London,
1934. p. 85.

" A History of Hindu Political Theories. V. Ghoshal. Oxford, 1923. p. 103.

^ Theory of Government in Ancient India. Beni Prasad. Allahabad, 1927. pp. 66-67.

60 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Still more important, the Brahman's ambition was limited by his
own religious beliefs. Hindus have a strong belief in an after-life —
stronger than is characteristic of Europeans or Chinese — which rather
militates against ambition as also against the desire for reform.
Writes V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar:^

'If the Brahmans had been really avaricious or ambitious they could
have easily aspired to the imperial and royal offices. If they had only
wished they could have easily adorned the thrones of many a state.
But instead they sought voluntarily a hard and strenuous life of fasting
and penance.

The Brahman is holy from birth. He is taught the ceremonial rules,
hymns and legends. He alone can perform the ritual correctly and
effectually. And the ancient laws, while insisting upon the Brahman's
superiority, also provide him with strict rules of life. According to
these, he should spend a quarter of his life in study under a teacher; a
quarter in public and private affairs as householder and husband
(during which phase he should bring up a son to succeed him); a
quarter as a recluse, to be spent in contemplation; and the last
quarter as an ascetic, without possessions, without society and even
without religious rites. During this last phase the old Brahman lives
on charity, purges his heart of all desire and seeks to merge himself
in Brahma — the supreme deity. Concerning this last phase the
injunction is:

Let him not desire to die; let him not desire to live; let him wait for
his time as a servant for the payment of his wages. Let him patiently
bear hard words. . . . Against an angry man let him not in return show
anger; let him bless when he is cursed.

He is not to injure any living creature; he is to meditate, give up all
attachments. The world is all illusion — a confused and troubled
dream, to be regarded without interest.

The wise man should regard a world which he knows to be illusion,
with indifference; it can do nothing for him, he can do nothing for it;
it affects him only with an ineradicable regret that it exists at all, and
with a longing for its disappearance. . . .

Brahmanism is the religion of a few. It is clearly, however, an
excellent belief for a Minister who may wish to restrain royal power
without superseding it. A recluse who has come to regard the business
of state as something akin to the pointless and slightly irritating
buzzing of blue-bottles on a window pane makes a poor conspirator.
The Brahmans were men with no reason to argue about their pension

' Hindu Administrative Institutions. Madras, 1929. p. 122.

MONARCHY AND NATIONALISM 61

rights; and their ambitions, if they had them, were not hmitless. Nor
were they hopeful material for the revolutionary idealist, for the
Brahman could view social inequalities without much concern. The
slave deserves his slavery because of his misdoings during some
previous and sinful existence. The Brahman has earned his relative
ease in an earlier life and will be punished in a future life if he misuses
his privileges in this. Justice is a long-term process and not apparent
during any one phase of existence. It is not the less real, however, for
that; and there is certainly no cause to interfere with its progress,
even were interference possible.

Royal power in India was thus rather limited than threatened by
the power of the Brahmans. The king himself was head of the Warrior
caste and might also meet opposition among its members. But the
warriors lacked the wealth and education to form a real aristocracy,
while the merchants lacked both education and prowess. The result
was that kingship was little threatened during long periods of Indian
history. It was thought to be essential (as it probably was) to hold the
state together. And Indian political thought is not directed towards
discussing alternative forms of rule but rather towards considering
how to make monarchy effective. If monarchy is thus assumed, the
problems that remain are three; how to choose the right king; how to
educate the future king in youth; and how to ensure that the reigning
king has the best possible advice. These themes underlie most of the
political thought of ancient India and more especially of the Maurya
period, in the early days of Chandragupta (c. 305 B.C.), from which
much of our information is derived.

As regards choice of a future king, it was strictly limited, of course,
to the royal family. The king had, after all, to be a descendant of the
gods. But it was not essential for the eldest son to succeed. The
present king and his ministers could exercise a choice. This custom
was transmitted to Malaya, where the setting aside of unacceptable
princes has always been known. But while a choice might be made, it
was obviously convenient to make the choice as soon as possible so
that the future ruler might be trained for the work he would have to
do. We read that a future king's education should begin at the age of
three, with the alphabet and mathematics, and should continue from
the age of eleven in logic, economics and politics. Passing on to
higher studies in military science and history, he was to complete
his formal education at sixteen. Then he was to marry and become a
subordinate in a department of state. Finally he would be promoted
to a higher post as General or Governor of a Province, probably
being consecrated as heir-apparent at about the same time.^ The
Malay custom by which the future ruler is supposed to pass through

' Tiie Theory of Government in Ancient India. Beni Prasad. Allahabad, 1927. p. 218.

62 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Other offices before reaching the highest is derived from this Hindu
system and is open, incidentally, to similar objections.

There are other sources from which we may gain a more detailed,
if less systematic, account of the curriculum of study thought
desirable for an heir-apparent. In a work called Siitralankara^ a
learned author lays down a syllabus on these lines: —

The Veda, archery, medicine, sacrifices, astronomy, grammar, the
origin of writing, the performance of sacrifices, eloquence, rhetoric,
the art of love, interest, purity of families, the ten names, computa-
tions, chess, dice, the study of origins, music and song, the art of
playing on the conch, dancing and laughter, the art of prestidigitation,
education, the making of garlands of flowers, massage, the science of
precious stones and valuable materials for clothing, silk, sealing,
weaving, wax work, strategy, sewing, sculpture, painting, arrangement
of garlands, interpretation of dreams, interpretation of the flight of
birds, horoscopes of boys and girls, the training of elephants, the art
of playing on the tambourine, the rules of battle array, the domesti-
cating of horses, the carrying of the lance, jumping, running and
fording a river.

To the modern educationalist, interested in 'comprehensive'
schools and eager to discourage premature specialisation, there is
much in this syllabus worthy of careful study. To the student of
political thought it suggests that the prince was at least kept out of
mischief, with 'free activity' reduced to a minimum.

Once the chosen prince succeeded to the throne, following his years
of education and administrative experience, the Indian thinkers were
intent on seeing that he worked methodically, perhaps mainly so that
his official advisers could have regular access to the presence. Two
suggested time-tables for the day seem worth quoting in full. Neither
is an account, one may assume, of what an actual king did. Each is
rather a philosopher's idea of what the ideal king ought to do.

6.00 to 7.30 a.m. Supervising receipts and expenditure.

7.30 to 9.00 a.m. Affairs of citizens and people.

9.00 to 10.30 a.m. Bathing, Vedic chanting and eating.

10.30 to noon a.m. Affairs of the officers of state.

12.00 to 1.30 p.m. Council with ministers.

1.30 to 3.00 p.m. Rest and amusement.

3.00 to 4.30 p.m. Supervising the army.

4.30 to 6.00 p.m. Regarding enemies and military operations.

6.00 to 7.30 p.m. Receiving intelligence officers and others.

7.30 to 9.00 p.m. Bathing, eating and prayers.

9.00 to 1.30 a.m. Music and sleep.

' Ihicl.

3.00 to

4.00 a.m.

4.30 to

7.30 a.m.

7.30 to

11.15 a.m.

11.15 to 12.45 p.m.

12.45 to

2.15 p.m.

2.15 to

3.45 p.m.

3.45 to

4.30 p.m.

4.30 to

6.00 p.m.

6.00 to

7.30 p.m.

7.30 to

3.00 a.m.

MONARCHY AND NATIONALISM 63

1.30 to 3.00 a.m. Again music and thoughts of the morrow.
3.00 to 4.30 a.m. Other state business pondered over.
4.30 to 6.00 a.m. Morning greetings by Ministers.^

A relatively undisciplined European ruler, after only four and a
half hours sleep, might have been tempted, in these circumstances to
return the ministers' greetings with derision. For him the alternative
programme might have seemed slightly preferable: — -

Supervising accounts.

Bath and prayers, physical exercises.

Official business.

Dinner, rest and reading.

Justice and Council.

Hunting.

Parade and army muster.

Evening prayer and meal.

Report of Spies.

Rest and sleep.

The picture of kingship thus presented in Indian literature differs
sharply from other conceptions of that office. The king is not to be
the hieratic figure upon which religious ritual centred in Egypt or
Japan. He was not to be an active soldier, normally absent on the
frontiers or in the field. He was not to be a tyrant, doing what he
chose. He was expected to be a patient administrator, dealing with
routine business at the proper time, auditing accounts, conferring
with departmental chiefs, inspecting troops and reading reports.
No doubt kings would often fall short of this ideal pattern (and as
often perhaps go beyond it) but there is reason at least to suppose
that the Indians, or at any rate the Brahmans, pictured their king as
an actual ruler with real powers and definite duties. They never,
however, thought of him as ruling without advice.

The guidance of ministers was essential to the Indian theory of
kingship and much thought was given to the problems involved; the
choice of ministers, their number, their duties and their procedure in
council. First of the ministers was the Purohita, the chief Brahman,
a man distinguished, it was supposed, by learning and character.
Kautalya advises:

. . . that he may be appointed or selected as the purohita who belongs
to a distinguished and good family, highly learned, versed in all the

^ Hindu Administrative Institutions. V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar. Madras, 1929.
- Even though the time allocated to hunting would seem to offer a rather restricted
scope.

64 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

sacred lore, as well as the science of astronomy, and the theory of
polity, skilled in propitiating gods by the various rites prescribed in
the Athava Veda, to ward off calamities providential or otherwise
occurring in the kingdom. Him the king should follow as a student his
teacher, a son his father, and a servant his master. . . .^

The Purohita's duties were basically religious and ceremonial but
it was also generally agreed that the king could do nothing without
him. Tt is only a kingdom under the guiding hand of a Brahman that
will last long'. According to another (and Brahman) source, ' A king
without a purohita is like an elephant without the mahout'. Whereas
elsewhere the king might be the chief priest himself, in India he was
an administrator but with a priest at his elbow of almost equal (and
sometimes perhaps superior) power. The Purohita, whose salary was
enormous, accompanied the king in battle, uttering prayers, en-
couraging the troops, threatening the cowardly and seeing to it that
the army was drawn up 'in the formation invented by Aditya or by
Usanas' — which would seem to show that religious influence went
quite far enough.

The purohita usually formed one of an Inner Cabinet of four; the
other three being the Mantrin or Chief Adviser, the Commander-in-
Chief and the Heir apparent. These dealt with matters of the greatest
secrecy. But they were also members of the full Mantra or Council,
which numbered eight, ten or possibly twelve, with probably a
majority of the Warrior Caste. Some arguments were put forward by
a tenth century thinker'^ for limiting the council to three, five or
seven. The numbers in fact varied, those included being normally
perhaps the Treasurer, Foreign Minister, Chief Justice, Minister of
the Interior, Minister of Works, Minister of Revenue and Agri-
culture; with sometimes, in addition, the Chamberlain and the
Commander of the Household Troops. There was also a larger
Council of thirty-seven representative members, including four
Brahmans, eight of the Warrior Caste, twenty-one of the wealthier
Farmers and Merchants, three picked Sudras and one very carefully
chosen Suta. We read of other ministers in charge of prisons, forests,
frontiers and forts. When council meetings were held, considerable
care was taken to ensure secrecy. A special detached building was used
for the purpose, to prevent eavesdropping, and no living creature
allowed within earshot; a rule which applied not only to human
beings but to dogs, deer and (more reasonably) to parrots.

Procedure was carefully laid down. It seems to have been under-
stood, in the first place, that the king could make no major decision
without consulting his ministers. On the other hand, the decision,

■ See The Veciic Age. Ed. by R. C. Majumdar. London, 1951. p. 484.
- Theorv of Government in Ancient India. Beni Prasad. Allahabad, 1927. See pp.
235-236, etc.

MONARCHY AND NATIONALISM 65

when made, was his. He was not bound by a majority vote and might
obviously pay more attention to some advisers than to others. Soma-
deva Suri, a tenth century thinker, thus urges the king to ignore the
advice of soldiers when deciding between war and peace.

There is another precaution necessary in deliberation of state.
Military officers are not to be consulted in the determination of policy.
They are only too ready to clutch at war. Strife is the law of their
being. They are not to have a hand in the formation of policy lest they
involve the state in needless wars. Besides, if they are placed in control
of civil policy, they may grow dangerously proud and powerful. So,
according to Somadeva, the policy of the state is never to be governed
by the army.

In conducting negotiations, the king and councillors alike should
observe gravity and courtesy. Politeness enables one to achieve the
deadliest objects. The peacock, endowed with a sweet voice, makes
short work of snakes. It is, again, mere folly to speak too much, or
disclose too much. Above all, one should not lose one's temper or
presence of mind. Fortitude in adversity constitutes real greatness.
A yet greater danger to the state is popular indignation which should
never be roused.^

There is sound advice here. The theme of deadly politeness is
touched upon, incidentally, by other authors.

'The king, we are told, should be humble in speech alone, but sharp
at heart like a razor. He should carry his foe on his shoulders as long
as the time is unfavourable, and when the opportunity arrives he should
dash his enemy to pieces like an earthen pot on a piece of rock'. The
king who desires prosperity should slay the individual who thwarts his
purposes, be this person even his son, brother, father or friend. . . .
When wishing to smite, he should speak gently. After smiting, he
should speak gentlier still; after striking off the head with the sword,
he should grieve and shed tears. . . .^

To propose too many amendments to resolutions moved from the
chair might possibly prove unwise. And yet it was evidently the aim
to reach an agreed solution to the problems debated. A unanimous
decision was the ideal. Once it was reached or the matter at least
decided, the verdict was placed on record, the minute being signed
not merely by the king but by all the ministers present.

The procedure is described as follows : — -

Without a written document no business of state was done. A
matter was endorsed first by the home minister, the lord chief justice,
the minister of law, the minister of diplomacy, with the fixed style
'This is not opposed by us', i.e. their departments had no objection.
The Minister of Revenue and Agriculture endorsed with the remark

• Theory of Government in Ancient India. Beni Prasad. Allahabad, 1927. pp. 235-6.

* A History of Hindu Political Theories. V. Ghoshal. Oxford, 1923. p. 103.

66 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

'The note is all right'. The minister of finance: 'Well considered';
then the president of the Council inscribed in his own hand 'Really
proper'. Next the prathiidhi wrote: 'Fit to be accepted': the yuvaraja
following with 'Should be accepted', in his own hand. The ecclesias-
tical minister endorsed 'This is agreeable to me'. Every minister affixed
his seal at the end of his note. Finally the king wrote 'Accepted', and
set his seal. He was supposed to be unable to go through the document
carefully and the Yuvaraja or someone else was to make this endorse-
ment for him, which was shown him. After this first stage was over
the minute was signed by all the ministers as the Council. Finally it
was once more presented to the king who 'without delay' wrote 'Seen'
as he had not the 'capacity' to criticize it.^

Some of this reads as if the earlier kings, (Chandragupta, perhaps)
had been unable to read, or unable perhaps to read Sanskrit.

It would of course be wrong to base a general conception of Hindu
government upon isolated texts spread over hundreds of years. It
would be at least equally wrong to conclude that the principles of
cabinet government were discovered in India and spread thence to
other lands. We should probably be justified, however, in concluding
that councils and cabinets are influenced everywhere by similar
conditions. The ideal committee for secrecy is three (as one Indian
pointed out). The ideal committee for reaching a sensible decision
fairly quickly is five or seven. As numbers increase beyond that point,
discussion becomes diflficult and people begin making speeches. This
is sufficiently known. Other members are added, nevertheless, and for
two good reasons. In the first place, expert knowledge is needed on
more than six topics. In the second place, the persons included cannot
oppose while those left out can and probably will. Expanding on
these principles, the numbers in council rise inexorably to ten, twelve
or fifteen. By the time the number twenty is reached, the five most
important members will be meeting beforehand to make previous
decisions in secret conclave. Thenceforward the business of the larger
council becomes increasingly formal and some of its members are
demanding admission to the Inner Cabinet. As it proves impossible
to exclude them, the business of the Inner Cabinet itself becomes more
formal . . . and so the process continues. It is evident that the Indians
knew all about it in the Maurya period and are rediscovering now
anything they had forgotten since.

Theoretically, the system of a chosen king, educated for his ofllice
and advised by ministers of experience and probity is a good one. In
practice it falls short of the theoretical ideal. The fashion is to point
out that the king may be weak, wicked or even insane. But there
would still be difficulties even if all the kings were strong, virtuous and

' Hiiulii Adiiiinisiralive Institutions. V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar. Madras, 1929.
p. 141. The 'yuvaraja' was the heir apparent, the ecclesiastical minister, the Purohita.

MONARCHY AND NATIONALISM 67

sensible. For they would still be human beings and liable to the
accident of birth and death, disease and mishap. The theory of how
the heir apparent should be trained breaks down if the king outlives
his son, and perhaps his grandson as well. The system is weakened if
a king succeeds prematurely, at the age of three or five, with all the
problems of regency. Apart from that, a king can be ill for long
periods, crippled by an accident or left childless as the result of an
epidemic. A theoretically stately procession of monarchs is interrup-
ted, in practice, by periods during which the ruler is too young, too
old, too sick or too deaf. Worse still are the periods of doubt during
which uncertainty prevails as to who the next king is to be. So far as
India was concerned, what would in any case have been a defect in
monarchy was made far worse by the institution of polygamy. In a
regime lacking any precise rule governing the succession the Harem
was perhaps the chief menace. It produced a horde of rival princes,
each backed by a jealous mother. For the king the problem was ever
present. Should he send his younger brothers to govern remote
provinces? That would make it easy for them to rebel. Should he then
keep them at court, under his own eye? Why, then they would
poison him.

There was no real answer to the problem. Kautalya suggests that
the Harem should be isolated, walled, moated and approached by a
single well-guarded door. The guards should be females, eunuchs or
old men.^ In fact, a Hindu palace seems to have been organised as
much to ensure safety as comfort.

Everything bespeaks precaution. The structure of the palace itself
includes mazes, secret and underground passages, hollow pillars,
hidden staircases, collapsible floors. Against fire, poisonous animals,
and other poisons there is diverse provision, includmg trees which
snakes avoid, parrots and carika birds which cry out on seeingaserpent,
other birds which are variously aff"ected by the sight of poison. Every-
one has his own apartment, and none of the interior officials are
allowed to communicate with the outside. . . . Material objects, as they
pass in and out, are placed on record and under seal. According to
Megasthenes (XXVI I, 15) the king changes his apartment every night.
The kitchen is a secret place and there is a multitude of tasters. . . ."

As this passage suggests, the Civil Service was large. Nor was it
confined to the royal residence. We learn of a revenue system drawing
its funds from an excise on liquor, gambling, salt and prostitution.
We have salary lists showing that the Purohita and Crown Prince
were paid on the same scale and twice as highly as anyone else. We
find the physician placed on a salary scale level with the chariot-

' The Theory of Government in Ancient India. Beni Prasad. Allahabad, 1927. p. 122
^ Cambridge Modern History- Vol. \. p. 493. By F. W. Thomas.

68 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

driver, horsetrainer and carpenter, receiving half the income paid to
a captain of infantry. We find much of the apparatus of modern
government, with procedures similar to those of governments which
still exist. What we do not find is any suggested alternative to mon-
archy. For the result of any palace plot or assassination could only
be to replace one king by another. It involved no threat to monarchy
itself.

To find an example of a king who managed to retain all the
combined authority of patriarch, priest, ruler and war-leader, we
must turn to Europe and to that period in history when monarchy
was at its height. For it was in Europe that the idea of nationalism
gave to kingship that additional splendour which only a united people
could give. The king with merely paternal power could be no more
than the senior among others of almost equal authority. The king too
closely identified with God might tend (as in Egypt or Japan) to become
the stuffed dummy of religious veneration and practical impotence.
The king entirely occupied in the business of government may be
caught in the wheels of his own routine (as happened, no doubt, to
many Indian kings). The king, finally, who is primarily a leader in
war (like a seventeenth century Prince of Orange) will be unpopular if
the war goes badly and redundant when it is over. Greatest in power
was the king who avoided each of these pitfalls. Greatest, in fact, was
Louis XIV. He lacked the absolute power of a modern dictator; to
which no king could possibly have aspired. But within the religious
and traditional framework of monarchy he had perhaps as great an
authority as one man has ever borne; not so much from any unique
quality in him as from the wave of nationalist feeling upon which
he rode.

Nationalism was the sentiment which grew up in the later Middle
Ages in such kingdoms as were then unified (or in process of unifi-
cation) within strategic and defined frontiers which enclosed people
who were coming to speak a single language. Medieval kingdoms had
often been scattered territories — part in France, for example, and
part in England or Spain — comprising peoples differing from each
other in customs and speech. Formidable were the first consolidated
states, of which England was among the earliest. Rival kings en-
deavoured to follow suit, creating national realms, each from fear of
the other. France arose from fear of England, Great Britain was
formed from fear of Spain, Germany from fear of France, Austria-
Hungary from fear of Germany and Italy from fear of Austria.
Nationalism was the unifying force and the Holy Roman Empire and
Italy were for long weakened by the lack of it. Nationalism was
expressed in monarchy and sad was the fate of Poland which had
only an elective crown. The two biggest exceptions to the rule of

MONARCHY AND NATIONALISM 69

kingship in seventeenth century Europe were the Netherlands and
England, and these reverted to monarchy under the pressure of war,
and indeed under the pressure of war with each other. They ended
their conflict not only both monarchies but both, momentarily,
under the same monarch. By the last half of the seventeenth century,
nationalist monarchy had become the fashion and Louis XIV of
France was the model of what a national monarch should be.

Louis had and retained all the basic elements of power but
heightened by the love of his subjects for the France they saw
embodied in him, a France to be defined by the Alps, the Pyrenees
and the Rhine. 'The King's authority was very nearly the same as
that exercised by the head of a family', writes Paul VioUet,^ and
Louis himself told his expected successor to 'Think of them as your
children' and 'Set your subjects an example that a Christian father
sets his family'. This tradition of royal fatherhood was strong and had
been especially maintained by Henri IV who once told his Parlement
'You see me in my private room . . . like the head of a family [come]
to speak frankly to my children'. With it went the king's special
responsibilities in receiving petitions and settling disputes. But the
King also had his share of divinity. Louis was convinced, for one,
that his authority was delegated to him by God, and indeed conferred
at his coronation. It was, he admitted, a secular authority, for he
conceded the Pope a measure of control in his own proper sphere.
Suger had described Louis VI as 'the Vicar of God Whose living
image he bears in himself- and the idea had lost nothing of its force
when Louis XIV ruled in his turn. In his Memoirs (assuming them to
be genuine) he clearly explains the view he took of his own sacred
office:

. . . occupying, so to speak, the place of God, we seem to be sharers of
His knowledge, as well as of His authority.

Exercising as we do the Divine function here below. . . .

Kings, whom God appoints the sole guardians of the public
weal. . . .^

Pictures of his coronation show that even Catholic ritual could
afford him a position as God's representative on earth. But that was
not all, for there was an added pagan feeling about Versailles, where
the motif of the Sun or of Apollo pervaded the architecture, the
sculpture and the painting. In the background, behind the Christian
theology, the King's magical and life-giving powers remained; a
legacy from Rome and Egypt. But his belief in his divine mission

' The Old Regime in France. Frantz Funck-Brentano. 1926. Trans, by H. Wilson.
London, 1929. p. 145.

- Funck-Brentano, op. cit. p. 149.

' Quoted in The Splendid Century. W. H. Lewis, p. 41.

70 THE INVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Stopped short of the absurd. If he was something of a pubhc idol at
Versailles, he could relax at Marly and be a man again.

He ran less risk of becoming an idol than he did of being caught in
the wheels of administration. As St. Simon remarked, 'Give me an
almanac and a watch and ... I will tell you what the King is doing'.
His daily routine was not invariable but it is reminiscent, at least, of
the time-table prepared for Indian kings by Indian philosophers (see
pp. 62-63). It seems to have followed some such plan as this: — ^

8.00 a.m.

The King is called

8.15 a.m.

Greetings by Ministers and Court

9.00 a.m.

Prayers

10.00 a.m.

Council

12.30 p.m.

Chapel Royal for Mass

1.00 p.m.

Visits the Ladies

2.00 p.m.

Dinner

3.30 p.m.

Exercise

5.00 p.m.

Council

7.00 p.m.

Reception, with music

10.00 p.m.

Supper

11.00 p.m.

Visits the Ladies

11.30 p.m.

Receives Ministers and Court

12.00 p.m.

Sleep

Louis considered it his duty to know everything (especially his own
country), to work eight or nine hours a day, to do justice and show
mercy and to put the good of the State before every other con-
sideration. He considered himself responsible for his work to God,
and to God alone. He had given serious thought to the nature of
monarchy and pointed out that, in lands where there was no king
'Instead of having one sovereign power as they should, nations are
subject to the whims of a thousand tyrants'."^ That he assumed the
entire responsibility for day-to-day administration is shown from
his own Memoirs in which he writes: —

It is always worse for the public to control the government than to
support even a bad government which is directed by Kings whom God
alone can judge. . . . Those acts of Kings that are in seeming violation
of the rights of their subjects are based upon reasons of State — the
most fundamental of all motives, as everyone will admit, but one often
misunderstood by those who do not rule.^

' Based on Funck-Brentano and W. H. Lewis, op. cit. Some of the hours given are
only approximate and some, in fact, varied. Supper, e.g. might be as late as 11.30.
-Louis XIV. Louis Bcrtrand. Trans. C. B. Chase. New York, 1928. p. 312
^ Ibid. See p. 313. See also A King's lessons in statecraft. Ed. by J. Longnon. London,
1924.

MONARCHY AND NATIONALISM 71

Reasons of State are thus comprehended only by the King and
those who assist him. Nor, it is obvious from Louis XIV's practice,
was his power — derived both from God and from Reasons of State —
to be shared with others. He did not rule through his nobles but
through middle-class officials like Colbert and Louvois. There were
Councils of State, of Despatches, of Finance, of Commerce and of
Conscience, together with a Privy Council. The Secretaries of State
held key positions but with authority directly derived from the King.
They merely gave advice when it was required and then carried out
decisions which the king had made.

The nobles, whose birth, property and privilege might have given
them a measure of independent authority, more especially in the
provinces, were rendered impotent, partly by their own Caste system
and partly by deliberate royal policy. Caste in France had the same
political result as in India. It prevented any other man combining (as
the king did) the powers of the divine, the intellectual, the financier
and the soldier. The Nobility of the Sword, itself split into jealous
categories, was forbidden to engage in trade — forbidden by a
sixteenth century decree enacted at the instance of the merchants
themselves.^ The Nobility of the Robe had a monopoly of official and
legal offices but were practically excluded from high rank in the army,
v/hich was reserved for Nobles of Ancestry or anyway of Birth. The
Financier or Banker might purchase a title of nobility but would
remain, socially, non-existent. Bishops and Abbots, of noble birth,
had something like a monopoly of education but were kept from
political power and vowed to celibacy. -

What caste had begun the king took care to finish. The experiences
of his youth had taught him to deprive the nobles of political office
and experience (save in diplomacy). This left them idle and poten-
tially mischievous. Louis wanted to have them, therefore, under his
own eye, and adopted, therefore, a policy such as had long been
familiar at the Imperial Court of Japan. He gave many of the highest
nobles a sinecure position in his own household, one involving
ceremonial duties and a constant attendance at court. Others attended
to angle for such sinecures, others to avoid the royal displeasure
which their absence would attract, and others again (the lesser fry)
attached themselves to the greater. By the end of Louis XIV's long
reign, the nobles' lives had come to centre on the king, on the routine
and ceremonial of monarchy. Their lives had come to centre, in fact,
on Versailles.

Versailles was built, largely, between 1669 and 1710, although much

' This law was not repealed until 1756.

^ See The European Nobility in the Eighteenth Centurv. Ed. by A. Goodwin. London,
1953. See pp. 22-42.

72 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

of what now exists is of later date. The lesser palaces of Trianon
and Marly were built after 1688. They do not represent a personal
extravagance.

The cost of Versailles was not undertaken for a man, it was under-
taken for a nation; the man and the nation were indistinguishable. Its
gigantic size is the crowd surrounding monarchy, its continual level
lines are the timelessness of monarchy: the claim to be enduring.^

Versailles was certainly a shrine of nationalism as symbolised by
kingship. But it was also the place where an entire upper nobility
was absorbed in entertainment, clothes, retinue, building, ritual and
gambling. Life at court was exhausting, splendid, tedious, dazzling,
comfortless and costly. Before utterly condemning all this frivolity,
however, let us remember that Louis was actually governing the
country from Versailles.

The king, we have seen, combined powers which were paternal,
divine and administrative. He was also the leader in war. Kingship
represented nationalism and the first thing to be nationalised was
war. It was the seventeenth century which saw the organization of
national armies on lines we still follow, invented by Maurice of
Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus. It is from the seventeenth century
that we derive the Regiment, Battalion, Squadron, Company and
Troop; the Colonel, Lieutenant-Colonel, Major, Captain, Lieut-
enant, Sergeant and Corporal. And the holders of these ranks drew
no authority from their own titles of nobility but solely from the
king's commission or appointment. War was thus nationalised and
only battles 'royal' would henceforth be allowed. Nor would the king
himself be absent. He was present at battles — or, to be more precise,
at sieges — and shared a life under canvas with his generals. He could
be quite accurately depicted in contemporary art as astride his
charger. Between the legs of his horse could be seen the smoke
drifting lazily over the threatened bastion, while (nearer the eye) the
pioneers might be glimpsed pressing forward from the second parallel
to the third. And while his generals may sometimes have prayed for
his departure, his presence may well at times have been eflTective, more
especially in convincing the other side that they would have to capitu-
late in the end. So Louis could be fairly regarded as a war leader and
one who was, in fact, almost constantly at war. His prestige stood
high so long as he could be represented as victorious.

Nationalism was the force that lifted Louis to such an unexampled
height of power. To the authority of paternity, religion, government
and war leadership he could add the growing sentiment which made
him the symbol of France itself. He could represent a growing unity

' Monarchy. A Study of Louis XIV. Hilaire Belloc. London, 1938. pp. 327-328.

MONARCHY AND NATIONALISM 73

within a defensible frontier. He could typify French resistance to the
Habsburgs and the old idea of the Empire. His was not the power of
the modern dictator, who can crush all opposition by force. His was
rather the greater prestige of one with whom his subjects can identify
themselves. His magnificence was theirs, his palace was theirs, his
fame was that of France and so theirs again. There is little reason for
supposing that the French peasants grudged the cost of Versailles.
There is more reason to suppose that they gloried in it.

CHAPTER V

Monarchy justified by Divine Right

WE must not expect to find arguments set forth to justify
monarchy in countries or during periods which offered no
possible alternative. Monarchy is perhaps the more established
when it is not justified but merely assumed. This was not true of
medieval Europe. From as early, however, as the fifth century a.d.,
monarchy was one alternative among other formsof rule. There were
propagandists, moreover, who upheld the royal authority. One of
these, quoted by Jonas of Orleans and Hincmar of Rheims, adjured
the king:

to prevent theft; to punish adultery; not to exalt the wicked to
power; not to nourish unchaste persons and actors; to destroy the
wicked from the face of the earth ... to defend churches . . . not to
give ear to the superstitions of magicians, soothsayers and pythonesses;
to put away anger ... to hold the Catholic faith in God . . . etc.^

The duties, which are stated, indicate the powers, which are
implied. But better arguments for monarchy come, as might be
expected, from England, where a national monarchy was first
extablished. The earlier of two notable propagandists was the
anonymous author of several treatises written between 1080 and
1 104. He may have been from that date in the household
of the Archbishop of York.-^ This author would make the King
God's Representative, with bishops and clergy his subordinates. The
King, he says, is 'Vicar of God' as from his coronation and the Pope
is only Bishop of Rome. The later and more moderate advocate of
kingship is John of Salisbury, author of PoUcraticus or The States-
man s Book (of 1159) and a friend of Pope Adrian IV. He wrote as
follows: —

For myself I am satisfied and persuaded that loyal shoulders should
uphold the power of the ruler; and not only do I submit to his power
patiently, but with pleasure, so long as it is exercised in subjection to
God and follows His ordinances. But on the other hand if it resists
and opposes the divine commandments and wishes to make me share

' Tlie Statesman's Bootc of Jolui of Salisbury. Trans, by John Dickinson. New York,
1927. Introduction, p. liii.

' Autliorilv and Reason in tlie Earlv Middle Ages. A. J. Macdonald. Oxford, 1933.
p. 115.

74

MONARCHY JUSTIFIED BY DIVINE RIGHT 75

in its war against God; then with unrestrained voice I answer back
that God must be preferred before any man on earth. Therefore
inferiors should cleave and cohere to their superiors, and all the limbs
should be in subjection to the head; but always and only on condition
that religion is kept inviolate. . . .

. . . whatsoever is attempted foully and with malice against the head, or
corporate community, of the members, is a crime of the greatest
gravity and nearest to sacrilege; for as-the latter is an attempt against
God, so the former is an attack upon theprince, who is admitted to be
as it were the likeness of deity upon earth. ^

In fact, a principal medieval argument for kingship was based on
the belief that Heaven is a Monarchy and that Earth should be the
same. All earthly lordship, as Gierke writes, was 'a limited rep-
resentation of the divine Lordship of the world'.'- The analogy of
head and members was also a favourite medieval metaphor; and
there are University Heads of Departments even now.

An even greater medieval political thinker was St. Thomas Aquinas
himself (1227-1274) who in his De Regimine Principum analysed
forms of government very much as Aristotle had done but with this
difference that he regarded the State as serving the individual and not
the other way about. He too defends monarchy (preferably elective)
provided that its claims do not conflict with those of the Church.
,His argument runs thus: —
/

. . . That is best which most nearly approaches a natural process, since
nature always works in the best way. Among members of the body there
is one which moves all the rest, namely the heart: in the soul there is
one faculty which is pre-eminent, namely, reason. The bees have one
king, and in the whole universe there is one God, Creator and Lord
of all . . . it follows of necessity that the best form of government in
human society is that which is exercised by one person.^

But St. Thomas's monarch has the support of the Church only
while subordinate to it. For the object of the people in forming a
society is to live virtuously and 'come to the enjoyment of God'. The
lay ruler cannot lead them to this and 'under Christ's Law, kings
must be subject to priests'.'* So it happened that the lay rulers of
Rome came, by divine providence, to be the subjects of the Pope.
How could the Kingdom of God be otherwise ruled?

. . . The administration of this Kingdom has been committed, not to
the kings of this world, but to priests, in order that the spiritual should

The Statesman's Book of John of Salisburv. Trans, by John Dickinson. New York,
1927. Chap. XXV. pp. 258-259.

"^Legacy of the Middle Ages. p. 518.

^ Aquinas. Selected political writings. Ed. A. P. D'Entreves. Trans. J. G. Dawson.
Oxford, 1948. pp. 12-13.

* Aquinas, op. cit. pp. 12-13.

76 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

be distinct from the temporal ; and above all to the Sovereign Roman
Pontiff, the Successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, to whom all the
kings of Christian people should be subject as to our Lord Jesus
Christ Himself.^

There are, he argued, two orders of kingship, but the spiritual is
supreme over the temporal and the Pope has the power to deprive a
sovereign, by excommunication, of the right to rule. On this subject,
where St. Thomas was moderate, other Papal supporters were violent.
Some, like Manegold of Lautenbach argued that King and Emperor
could alike be removed by the people themselves for misconduct.

If one should engage a man for a fair wage to tend swine, and he find
means not to tend but to steal or slay them, would not one remove him
from his charge?^

Others, and Innocent III among them, were intent to show that
Charlemagne was given his Empire by the Pope and that the Empire,
whenever vacant, reverted to the Pope again. It was Augustin Trionfo
(in the reign of John XXII) who went further than this, maintaining^
that the Pope is supreme and that from his will there is no appeal,
not even to God. The Pope, by his theory, could depose any Emperor
and choose another. Ptolemy of Lucca (who completed St. Thomas's
book) maintains that the Pope is Emperor by right and merely dele-
gates his authority to laymen."^ The claims on this score of Boniface
VIII, who triumphed over the Emperor, went even beyond those of
Innocent III.

These extreme views of Papal authority became more difficult to
sustain after 1305, when there was a rival French Pope set up at
Avignon. Pierre du Bois, writing at that time (c. 1307), wanted to
destroy the temporal power of Church and Pope. He wished, in
effect, to make the King of France the ruler of Christendom, or
perhaps even Emperor. He desired to confiscate church property and
set up a League of Nations and International Courts of Law. His
De Recuperatione Terrae Sanctae is a remarkably prophetic book.
Pierre du Bois looks to the future while his contemporary, Dante
Alighieri, looks only to the past. But Dante's De Monarchia (c. 1309),
written as it was in a lost cause, is interesting as a reflection of what
Imperial protagonists had been no doubt arguing long before.
Writes Dante:

Now it is admitted that the whole human race is ordained for a

' The Social and Political Ideas of some great Medieval Thinkers. Ed. by F. J. C.
Hearnshaw. London, 1923. p. lOL

* Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought and Learning. Reginald Lane Poole.
London, 1932. p. 203.

^ Poole, op. cii. pp. 222-223.

' Cainbi tdge Medieval History. Vol. VI. p. 632.

MONARCHY JUSTIFIED BY DIVINE RIGHT 77

single end, as was set forth before. Therefore there must be one guiding
or ruling power. And this is what we mean by monarch or emperor.
Thus it appears that for the well-being of the world there must be a
monarchy or empire.^

But this argument from necessity is the least part of his case. He
shows that the Roman Empire 'in subjecting the world to itself, did
so by right';- a right proved above all by the fact of Christ choosing
to be born under Roman rule and at a moment chosen 'in order that
the Son of God, made man, might be enrolled as a man in that
unique register of the human race' that Augustus had ordered.
'Christ, then, gave assurance by deed that the edict of Augustus . . .
was just', — and hence that the Romans ruled with God's consent.
Nor is the Pope an intermediary. The Emperor's authority comes
directly to him from God — 'descends upon him without any mean
from the fountain of universal authority'. ■'

Rather later than Dante (in 1324) came Marsiglio with his
^Defensor Pacis"^ which does not stop at merely defending elective
monarchy as a necessary expedient or a thing approved by God. He
attacks Papal pretensions to rule at all, maintaining that 'the power
of the clergy is . . . not only restricted to spiritual affairs: it can only
be given effect to by spiritual means'. There is nothing coercive about
the Gospel and all texts which may seem to authorise the temporal
power or jurisdiction of the clergy are flatly contradicted by the text
'My kingdom is not of this world'. Marsiglio was propagandist for
the Emperor against John XXII but his arguments are practically
those of the Reformation.

Medieval political thinkers were relatively few and it would be
rash, no doubt, to base too many theories on the few of their works
that have survived. It would seem, however, that they could find good
cause to support monarchy but differed from each other as to the
proper relations which should exist between King and Church.
While the more nationally minded in England, and later in France,
were eager to invest the King with religious powers, it is clear that
actual kings were always controlled, in some measure, by the Church,
and often handicapped by their own lack of knowledge.^ John of
Salisbury urges that a prince should always be able to read. 'If,
nevertheless, out of consideration for other distinguished virtues, it

' A Translation of the Latin Works of Dante Alighieri. Temple Classics. 1934. De
Monarchia. p. 141.

^ Dante, op. cii. p. 195.

^ Dante, op. cit. p. 279.

* Lane Poole, op. cit. p. 230 et scq. See also Legacy of the Middle Ages. p. 520.
The Defensor Pads was written by Marsiglio of Padua and John of Jandun, 'two pupils
of damnation'.

' But the king was not exactly a layman either. See Kingship and Law in the Middle
Ages. F. Kern. Trans, by S. B. Chrimes. Oxford, 1948. p. 38.

78 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

should chance that the prince is illiterate, it is needful that he take
counsel of men of letters if his affairs are to prosper rightly'/ And
where would he find men of letters, save in the Church? But if the
king were thus limited in power, the consensus of opinion was in
favour of monarchy as such. The most fervent advocates of Papal
power and clerical privilege were far, as a rule, from demanding the
abolition of kingship. In proclaiming that kings should be subordi-
nate they implied at least that kings should exist.

Last of the medieval thinkers we should notice is Nicolo Machia-
velli who was born in 1469 and was therefore about 25 when Italy
was invaded by the French, the Italian tov/ns and castles falling before
a relatively novel use of artillery. Machiavelli held public office in
Florence from 1494 to 1512, and was then sent into exile. First fruit
of his leisure was his book The Prince, completed in 1513. It contains
maxims of statecraft based on the tortuous byways of Italian politics
and is interesting in that it illustrates how completely dead were
Medieval ideals in Italy before anything new was invented to replace
them. Obsessed by the contrast between the glories of ancient Rome
and the futile impotence of the Italian States he knew, Machiavelli
demanded a restoration of everything ancient. Apart from that, he
completely mistook the causes of the Italian failure in war and
diplomacy. Nor do his subtle maxims foreshadow the behaviour of
the new kings of the newly consolidated nation states. These kings
were feeling their way towards a new conception of monarchy, and
it was before this new reality that all the Italian subtleties would be
blown away like cobwebs.

The Reformation had much to do with it. The kings who denied
Papal authority and confiscated Church lands added the powers of
Pope to the powers of King and used both to stamp out feudalism.
But the Papacy was so weakened by this defection that the Catholic
Kings gained an almost equal independence as the reward for their
loyalty. Nationalism, in this religious aspect, was not a movement
inspired by kings for their own benefit. It was a genuine movement
among people who willingly invested their national king with the
powers of Emperor, Pope, Church and Peerage. So far from being the
unscrupulous and futile Prince of Machiavelli's imagining, the
sixteenth century king became far more than a man. He was to em-
body in himself the whole territory he ruled, focussing its divergent
provinces, centralising its language and moulding its peoples into one.
Shakespeare illustrates this process in Henry V, showing not merely
the sixteenth century glory of kingship but the almost intolerable
burden of responsibility which the king had now assumed.

' The Statesman's Book of John of Salisburv. Trans, by John Dickenson. New York,
1927.

MONARCHY JUSTIFIED BY DIVINE RIGHT 79

Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls
Our debts, our careful wives
Our children, and our sins lay on the king!
We must bear all. O hard condition !
Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
But his own wringing. What infinite heart's ease
Must kings neglect that private men enjoy!
And what have kings that privates have not too
Save ceremony, save general ceremony ? . . . .
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial. ...

Note the expressions used 'our souls' (hitherto the affair of the
Church), 'the balm' (of Coronation), and 'the crown imperial'.
Shakespeare was watching the birth of a new idea; that of sovereignty
on the national scale; the unchecked sovereignty of the king.

It did not at first seem inevitable that nationalism would produce a
kingship of this kind. Sir Thomas More, born in 1478, almost alone
among political thinkers in having a practical knowledge of govern-
ment, makes his Utopia a national state but with a ruler elected
merely for life. His returned traveller thinks that 'the kingdom of
France alone is almost greater than that it may well be governed by
one man' and that a French King would be foolish to seek more
territory elsewhere. He assumes that France, like Utopia, should be
a national state. Luther firmly supported any prince against any
rebellion and, after 1531, held that it was for the ruler to put down
false doctrine, Erasmus, by contrast, pleaded for a limited monarchy
but did so before a dwindling audience.^ The age of Divine Right had
already dawned.

In the published works of James I of England we find the theory of
Divine Right explained by one who professed to inherit it. Beginning
his theorising in 1598, he explained that the King is God's minister
and lieutenant and monarchy the form of government nearest to that
of heaven.^ The hereditary king is responsible to God, not to his
people, nor to the Laws. Resistance to a lawful monarch is against
Holy Scripture, even should he rule wickedly. As time went on and as
he met opposition, James put his claims in an even more extreme
form. 'The state of monarchy', he declared in 1609, 'is the supremest
thing on earth'. Kings are justly called gods, for their powers are a
replica of the Divine omnipotence. Like God they may 'make and
unmake their subjects . . . they have power of raising and casting

' Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance. M. M. Phillips. London, 1949. Chap. 4.
p. 123 et seq.

^ The Social and Political Ideas of some great Thinkers of the \6th and Mth Centuries.
Ed. by F. J. C. Hearnshaw. London, 1926. Chapter V. pp. 105-129.

80 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

downe; of life and of death. , . . They have power to exalt low things
and abase high things, and make of their subjects like men at the
chesse. . . .'James carried this doctrine to its limit as only a Protestant
might. 'It is atheisme and blasphemic to dispute what God can doe,
so it is presumption and high contempt in a subject, to dispute what
a King can doe. . . .'

It is too commonly assumed that claims such as these were uni-
versally resented from the first. They were not alien, however, to the
author of Henry V, nor presumably to the audience for which his
plays were produced. The divinity attaching to the monarch seems to
have been welcome, in fact, so long as there was another and foreign
monarch to oppose. Divine Right was always acceptable if it were the
right to claim God's help against the alien. Erasmus was quick to
notice how ardent were the clergy in preaching:

... a just, a religious, or a holy war. And which is yet more wonderful,
they make it to be God's Cause on both sides. God fights for us, is the
cry of the French pulpits; and what have they to fear that have the
Lord of Hosts for their Protector? — Acquit yourselves like men, say
the English and the Spaniard, and the victory is certain; for this is
God's cause, not Caesar's. . . }

As against the divinely guided Philip II of Spain, Elizabeth could
not be invested with too much divine authority. Once this had been
done, however, it was not easy (at least in logic) to deny the same
divinity to a duly anointed successor — and even to one at peace with
Spain. The English clergy in 1640 agreed that

'The most high and sacred order of kings is of Divine Right, being
the ordinance of God Himself, founded in the prime laws of nature, and
clearly established by express texts both of the Old and New Testa-
ments'. -

As late as 1681 we find the University of Cambridge conceding to
Charles II, in a public address, exactly the authority claimed by
James I.

We still believe and maintain that our kings derive not their title
from the people but from God; that it belongs not to subjects, either
to create or censure but to honour and obey their sovereign, who
comes to be so by a fundamental hereditary right of succession, which
no religion, no law, no fault or forfeiture can alter or diminish.^

Nor should it be assumed that responsibility towards God was, in
the seventeenth century, a mere form of words. It was not a way of

' Social and Political Ideas of the Renaissance and RefonnUion. Fd. F. J. C. Hcarn-
shaw. p. 168.

'The Divine Right of Kings. J. N. Figgis. Cambridge, 1922. p. 142.
" The Seventeenth Century. G. N. Clark, p. 224.

MONARCHY JUSTIFIED BY DIVINE RIGHT 81

saying that the King was not responsible at all. His responsibility was
heavy and the average king v/as well aware of it. He might be
allowed a divine sanction coupled with an absolute power but that
divine sanction in itself set bounds to the way in which the power
might be used. His power was limited not so much by any political
opposition as by the very nature of his office. Although, as we shall
see, there were practical arguments used in favour of kingship, there
can be no doubt that it was the appeal to Holy Writ which carried
more weight among the people at large. Nationalism and Divine
Right were basically the same idea, the latter always acceptable when
the former was in danger.

CHAPTER VI

Monarchy justified by Expedience

IT was not until republicanism appeared in religious guise that
arguments, other than religious, were needed to justify kingship.
Calvin's arrival in Switzerland in 1534 heralded the setting up there of
a Calvinist Republic at Geneva. Calvin converted what was already
an oligarchy of merchants into a protestant theocracy. The Genevan
magistrates were to see to it that God was obeyed, defaulters punished
and heretics killed. Henceforth it might well be insufficient, at least in
protestant circles, to show that monarchy was approved by God. It
could not even be shown that monarchy was approved by all godly
persons, for this was no longer true. It became increasingly necessary
to find other arguments by which godly believers in Monarchy might
convince equally godly republicans. There had to be an appeal to
reason and the number gradually increased (in the later seventeenth
century) of those to whose reason an appeal could be hopefully
addressed. A few of those who had fought over monarchy in youth
were willing to discuss its merits and defects in middle age.

First of these pure theorists was Jean Bodin, born in 1529, whose
Six books of the Republic^ date from 1576. Bodin was a law teacher
and advocate who held a position at one time in the household of the
Due d'Alengon. He may have been a protestant at one period but
later became a freethinker. He wrote in defence of the French
Monarchy, which was hardly then established. His ideas are some-
what confused but he argues, first and foremost, that there must be
a sovereign power in the State and that this power must be vested in
the King. A group, he maintains, cannot have a will.

In a democracy sovereignty is vested in a majority: and a majority
is not only, at best, an ignorant, foolish and emotional mob, but shifts
continually and alters from year to year.-

He thus dismisses the idea of democracy, pointing out that men are
unequal and that there is less real liberty in a democracy than under
any other form of rule. 'True popular liberty consists in nothing else
than ability to enjoy one's goods in peace, fearing not at all for one's

' The Social and Political Ideas of some great Thinkers of the \6th and 17 th Centuries.
Ed. by F. J. C. Hearnshaw. London, 1926. See pp. 42-62.

- A Historv of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century. J. W. Allen. London, 1951.

pp. 437, 483.

82

MONARCHY JUSTIFIED BY EXPEDIHNCE 83

life and honour or that of one's wife and family'. Nor is he more
inchned to favour an aristocratic State which he thinks will certainly
be ruined by the feuds and jealousies of its members. Only a monarch
can ensure order and none but a monarch can create any sense of
unity. So Bodin bases his plea for monarchy, not on God but on the
nature of things; one of the things being private property. Arguments
such as these were still more or less heretical and Thomas Hobbes,
using similar reasoning at a far later date, was promptly dubbed an
atheist. As mathematical tutor to Charles II, he was once free to
expound his ideas before a fairly attentive audience. Charles's
subsequent views were more akin to those of Hobbes than to those
of James I.

Hobbes begins his argument in Leviathan (165!) by supposing that
men were once in 'a state of nature'. Complete liberty for all then
makes peace impossible. Men thus live in chaos, war and fear.

In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit
thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth, no
Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea;
no commodious Building; no instruments of moving, and removing
such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the
Earth; no account of time; no arts; no Letters; no Society; and which
is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death. . . }

To escape from this misery, men agree (as reason suggests) to laws.
It is found, however, that the self-interest of individuals leads to the
laws being broken. Men cannot be bound by words. Laws, to be
useful, must be enforced. They need, therefore, a Common Power
for defence against foreigners and against each other. Such a power
can result only from each individual surrendering a part of his
natural rights, to be vested in one man or one assembly, to which all
must then submit their will and their judgment.

This is more than Consent or Concord; it is a real Unity of them all,
in one and the same Person, made by Covenant of every man with
every man, in such a manner as if every man should say to every man,
I authorise and give my Right of Governing myselfe, to this Man, or
to this Assembly of Men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right
to him, and authorise all his Actions in like manner. This done, the
Multitude so united in one Person is called a Common-Wealth. . . .
This is the Generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speak
more reverently) of that Mortal God, to which we owe under the
Immortal God, our peace and defence. . . . And he that carrieth this
Person is called SOVERAIGN and said to have Soveraign Power;
and every one besides, his SUBJECT.^

Hobbes is careful to explain that the Sovereign himself (or itself) is

' Leviathan. Thomas Hobbes. Everyman Edition, 1937. pp. 64-65.
' Leviathan, p. 91.

84 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

no party to the contract. The subjects have made an agreement v^ith
each other, not with him. He cannot break the contract for he has
made none. He could make no agreement with the multitude as a
contracting body for it did not exist as such until the contract was
made. He could make no agreement with the individuals singly which
would not be void as a result of their subsequent agreement among
themselves. His rule, therefore, is absolute and he has promised
nothing. As against that, the subject has surrendered only political
rights, retaining his essential freedom:

. . . such as is the Liberty to buy and sell, and otherwise contract
with one another, to choose their own aboad, their own diet, their
own trade of life, and institute their children as they themselves
think fit.

While thus enumerating almost the exact rights which the modern
citizen has so largely lost, he reserves to the Sovereign the control of
religion, reminding us of one of the few freedoms which the modern
citizen has retained.

Hobbes' Leviathan could be an assembly but he usually assumes
that it will be a King. He does not regard the contract or covenant
between subjects as an historical fact so much as an implied agree-
ment. Whatever may be thought of this theory, Hobbes puts the case
for sovereignty and shows that, with religion nationalised, there can
be no legal limit to the powers of the Sovereign. He shows that,
whatever the tyranny of the ruler, it is preferable to the tyranny of
men over each other in a state of anarchy. He thus provides a reasoned
basis for monarchy, claiming too that reason in political matters
should prevail.

The skill of making and maintaining Commonwealths, consisteth
in certain Rules, as doth arithmetique and Geometry; not (as Tennis-
play) on Practise onely: which Rules, neither poor men have the
leisure, nor men that have the leisure, have hitherto had the curiosity,
or the method to find out.^

It is a mathematician's approach and not acceptable even now. At
the time, the arguments of a reputed atheist would carry little weight.
His reasoning was far less acceptable than the awful logic of James I's
teaching; that logic which led his son to execution.

Although Sir Robert Filmer lived from 1588 to 1653, his chief
work, Patriarcha, was not published until 1680, when it was used to
justify the personal rule of Charles II.'- The doctrine of Divine Right
had suffered under the Commonwealth, and the Restoration of

^Leviathan. Thomas Hobbes. Everyman Edition, 1937. p. 110.
= Patriarcha and other Political Works. Sir Robert Filmer. Ed. by Peter Laslett.
Oxford, 1949.

MONARCHY JUSTIFIED BY EXPEDIENCE 85

Charles II had been brought about by those whose behef in monarchy
was of a severely practical kind. Filmer's arguments suited the Tory
mood of the moment and were untainted by atheism. Filmer had
written primarily to deny Bellarmine's thesis that 'Secular or civil
power is instituted by men; it is in the people unless they bestow it on
a Prince'. This Filmer refuted by writing:

I see not then how the children of Adam, or of any man else, can be
free from subjection to their parents. And this subordination of
children is the fountain of all regal authority, by the ordination of
God himself From whence it follows that civil power, not only in
general is by Divine institution, but even the assigning of it specifically
to the eldest parent. Which quite takes away that new and common
distinction which refers only power universal or absolute to God, but
power respective in regard of the special form of government to the
choice of the people. Nor leaves it any place for such imaginary
pactions between Kings and their people as many dream of.^

Here Filmer is on firm ground. For whatever weight we may give
(or not give) to the Bible as the word of God, we must concede it
some authority as anthropology. That paternal rule is a fact is as
clear as that the theory of contract is only a theory. We need not
follow Filmer, however, in tracing the ancestry of Kings by the elder
Hne to Adam. Nor need we conclude, as he does, that to deny the
rights of elder sons is to land oneself in 'the desperate inconveniences'
of communism.

Filmer then goes on- to show from history the imperfections of
Democracy as compared with Monarchy : —

Indeed, the world for a long time knew no other sort of government
but only monarchy. The best order, the greatest strength, the most
stability and easiest government are to be found in monarchy, and in
no other form of government. The new platform of common-weals
were first hatched in a corner of the world, amongst a few cities of
Greece, which have been imitated by very few other places. Those very
cities were first for many years governed by Kings, until wantonness,
ambition or faction made them attempt new kinds of regiment. All
which mutations proved most bloody and miserable to the authors of
them, happy in nothing but that they continued but a small time.

He goes on to consider the history of Rome, denying that it was a
Republic for more than 480 years, at most, and showing that the great
achievements of Rome date in fact from the time of the Emperors — -
'For no democracy can extend further than to one city'. When it
does extend further:

As it is begot by sedition, so it is nourished by arms: it can never

' Patriarcha. Sir Robei t Filmer. p. 57.
== Ibid. pp. 86-93.

86 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Stand without wars, either with an enemy abroad, or with friends at
home. The only means to preserve it is to have some powerful enemy
near, who may serve instead of a King to govern it, that so, though they
have not a King among them, yet they may have as good as a King
over them, for the common danger of an enemy keeps them in better
unity than the laws they make themselves.

Events of the seventeenth century went some way towards proving
Filmer's general thesis Popular Government more Bloody than a
Tyranny'. Experience seemed to show that monarchy was best.
Neither would Filmer have the king other than sovereign. In his
pamphlet The Anarchy of a limited or mixed Monarchy he denies that
the king can either share his power or submit to the laws — which are,
after all, of the king's making. If the king's power is to be restricted by
law, who is to enforce the law? Whatever the answer, sovereignty
must lie in the enforcing power, not the king, and so the State in that
event is not a monarchy at all. He takes the instance of Poland and
concludes that it is a kind of republic.

The example of Poland, added to the example of the Common-
wealth in England, had a powerful effect on later seventeenth
century and eighteenth century Europe; a far greater effect, certainly,
than any arguments Filmer could take from Aristotle or the Bible.
During the eighteenth century, more especially, the arguments for
monarchy were based more and more upon its practical convenience,
less and less upon its divine origin and sanction. And when we reach
the later half of that century, the age of the enlightened despots, we
find that the kings themselves claimed rather to be efficient than
divinely inspired. Chief of the enlightened monarchs was Frederick
the Great, who despised Christianity; and next to him came Catherine
of Russia, a usurper. Both were admirers of Voltaire and of reason,
and their contemporaries Charles of Naples, Charles III of Spain,
Joseph of Portugal and George III of England and Hanover, could
all claim to be enlightened rulers in their different ways.

Spokesman for enlightened monarchy was Frederick of Prussia,
from whose successive works, beginning with the Antimachiavel of
1740, we gain a clear idea of how he viewed his own office. Having
dismissed Christianity with these words:

An old metaphysical romance, filled with marvels, contradictions
and absurdity, born in the ardent imagination of Orientals, has spread
into our Europe. Enthusiasts have purveyed it, careerists have
pretended to accept it, imbeciles have believed it. {Second Political
Testament, 1768).^

— he bases his monarchy on the assertion that hereditary rule is the

' Frederic/< the Great, the Ruler, the Writer, the Man. G. P. Gooch. London, 1947.
See Chapter XIL

MONARCHY JUSTIFIED BY EXPEDIENCE 87

easiest system to work and that republics soon collapse. The king is
no more than a man and, in being the first judge, the first general and
the first financier, is at the same time essentially the first servant.
Clearest statement of all comes in the Political Testament of 1752: —

A well conducted government must have a system as coherent as a
system of philosophy, so that finance, policy and the army are co-
ordinated to the same end, namely, the consolidation of the state and
the increase of its power. Such a system can only emanate from a
single brain, that of the sovereign.^

Frederick and his contemporaries mostly took their ideas from
France and, in particular, largely from Voltaire. The works of Voltaire
are copious but he wrote no single volume upon politics. It is easier,
in general, to discover what he disliked than what he approved. But
while his attitude towards Frederick was not always cordial, his
support of enlightened monarchy was fairly consistent. One would
search in vain in his books for praise directed towards any other
form of rule. 'Democracy' he writes 'seems suitable only to a very
little country'.^

As for Equality:

... it is as impossible for men to be equal as it is impossible for . . .
two professors in theology not to be jealous of each other.^

He continues, moreover: —

The human race, such as it is, cannot subsist unless there is an
infinity of useful men who possess nothing at all. . . .*

Nor does he show complete faith in any sort of parliament:

One distinguishes between the tyranny of one man and that of
many. . . .

Under which tyranny would you like to live? Under neither; but if
1 had to choose, I should detest the tyranny of one man less than that
of many. A despot always has his good moments; an assembly of
despots never.^

That Voltaire was not isolated in this preference is apparent from
the works of Frangois Quesnay and the Physiocrats, who also, in the
main, wanted to see power concentrated in the hands of a single
enlightened ruler.

In England, George 111 did not lack a measure of support among
men of intellect. If Voltaire had perhaps the best brain in France,

• Ibid. p. 282.

'^ Voltaire's Pliilosophical Dictionary. Selected and translated by H. I. Wolfe. London
1929.

'Ibid. p. 116.
' Ibid. p. 117.
^ Ibid. p. 308.

66 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Samuel Johnson had clearly one of the best brains in England.
While differing from Voltaire in nearly everything else, Johnson had
as little use for republics or for democracy.

'So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no
two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an
evident superiority over the other'. ^

On another occasion he said: —

'Sir, you are to consider, that in our constitution, according to its
true principles, the King is the head; he is supreme; he is above every-
thing, and there is no power by which he can be tried'. -

And again,

'The mode of government by one may be ill adapted to a small
society, but is best for a great nation'.^

And, finally,

'. . . a prince of ability . . , might and should be the directing soul
and spirit of his own administration. . . .'*

Living in a country which had been itself a Republic, and sur-
rounded by friends professing a wide variety of political opinions,
Johnson could never be made to see that the world would be much
improved by constitutional reforms. Said Boswell, on one occasion:

'So, Sir, you laugh at schemes of political improvement.'

And Johnson replied:

'Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very
laughable things.'^

Much work remains to be done on the political theory of en-
lightened monarchy. Historians have been too hypnotised by the
approach of the French Revolution to allow much importance to
authors who cannot be included in the select list of its causes. But
while there is much to do, we cannot expect further research to reveal
a strength in enlightened monarchy which it did not and could not
possess. For it is evident that the king who preached enlightenment
had never a fraction of the prestige of the king who derived his
authority from God. More than that, his authority derived more
from the old doctrine than the new. His subjects still believed in
divine right even when the king himself was exchanging letters with

' BoswelPs Life of Johnson. Ed. by G. B. Hill. Revised by L. F. Powell. Six volumes.
Oxford, 1934. Vol. II. p. 13.
" Ihid. Vol. I. p. 423.
■' Ibid. Vol. III. p. 46.
' Ihid. Vol. II. p. 117.
^ Ibid. Vol. II. p. 102.

MONARCHY JUSTIFIED BY EXPEDIENCE 89

Voltaire. Once this capital sum of divinity had been expended, all
that was left was the king's claim to be more efficient than any
alternative form of government. But this was an insecure foundation
for any permanent form of monarchy. The argument would be
weakened as soon as a successful alternative appeared. The argument
would be demolished as soon as the efficient king was succeeded by a
less efficient heir. This danger was apparent to Frederick the Great
himself who wondered, shortly before his death, whether his heir
was fit to succeed at all. Should his nephew prove soft, idle, extrava-
gant and uninspiring, he foretold that neither Prussia nor the house of
Brandenburg would last a decade. 'I frame a thousand prayers' he
wrote, 'that my forecast may be wrong, that my successors may do
their duty like sensible beings, and that Fortune may avert the major
part of the catastrophes by which we are threatened'.^ It is not clear
to whom he was praying, but we may be justly critical, in any case, of
a system of rule in which Fortune plays so large a part. No system will
last for ever and here is one which cannot last for long.

' Frederick the Great, the Ruler, the Writer, the Man. G. P. Gooch. London, 1947.
p. 294.

PART II

Oligarchy

CHAPTER VII

Feudalism

IN creating a nobility, kings prepare the way for their own downfall.
Nor is the process avoidable. Their own children and grand-
children form the basis of the nobility, their own generals and
advisers form its successive accretions, their own conquests accelerate
its growth. With a nobihty thus brought into existence, the king is
faced with potential rivals for power. If he disperses them among
distant provinces they will seek to gain independence. If he keeps
them at hand, they will plot against him when not actually quarrelling
with each other. Inevitably, the line of kings will be broken at some
point by the succession of a child, a saint or an imbecile. When that
moment comes, the nobles will try to seize power. If they fail to
do so collectively, at the centre, the result is feudalism.

While it would be wrong to describe this process as invariable,
examples of it are at least fairly common. China, for instance, became
a Feudal State towards the end of the Chou Dynasty (before 500 B.C.)
and was ruled until about 250 B.C. by hereditary nobles with ranks
corresponding to those of Duke, Marquis, Count and Baron. These
in turn had their own vassals, their own advisers and officials, their
own special training. This was the age, as it has been called, of the
Warring States. Some shadow of the central government remained
but its territory had fallen apart into so many almost independent
fragments. According to one authority, these numbered at one time
five or six thousand. A similar process is evident in Japanese history
when a cultured and sophisticated court lost control of the provinces
and saw them fall into the hands of local gentry, whose rivalries soon
destroyed any semblance of unity or order. In England the king was
for nearly a century, from 1399 to 1485, but the chief among the
Dukes and Earls, having little more than precedence among the
Nevilles and Talbots, the Beauchamps and Stanleys.

Although we could find examples of Feudalism in India, China
and Japan, Medieval Europe affords the classic background for
chivalry. Granted that the priests of the period have told us their
case, using a learning based on classic or holy writ, they have not
distracted our attention entirely from the facts. The chief political
fact was the armoured horseman, the tank of the period, on his own
ground invincible. The second political fact was the stone-built,

92

FEUDALISM 93

fortified castle. It was within a strategic framework of castles that the
medieval kings, bishops and knights played their game of chess. And
they played it according to rules evolved during the Crusades and
largely copied from the other side. The effect of the Crusades was to
bring European fighting men into close contact with the Arab world
of horsemanship. They eventually came home with new horses and
new ideas. The medieval world of Christendom was shaped by
Oriental influences, copied from forms developed in Syria, derived
from experience gained by Princes of Antioch and Counts of
Tripolis, steeped in the legends of Ascalon, Tiberias, Trebizond and
the Horns of Hattin. The Christian knights had learnt their chivalry
in the desert.

The medieval contributions to politics must be disassociated, surely,
from Empire and Papacy and the struggle for the prize that was not
there. The political interest of the Middle Ages must centre rather on
what is more typical: chivalry, monasticism, the cities and the
universities. These are the political equivalent of Gothic architecture.
They represent ideas that were new then, unknown before and
weakened since. They also represent, at bottom, the same political
idea; the idea of an organisation which is not local (like a City State),
nor all-embracing (like an Empire), but which exists in different and
scattered places, comprising members who are bound together by a
common loyalty and a common training.

Chivalry, or Chevalerie, derived from the Arabs, is the basic con-
ception and it means essentially a code of conduct among horsemen.
The medieval armoured cavalryman was a man-and-horse, both
carefully and expensively bred, trained and equipped. Descent
mattered, both in the horse and in the man. Each needed a pedigree.
Training mattered, too, and that of the knight covered his upbringing
from the age of seven to the age of twenty-one; a training in how to
ride, jump, wrestle, swim, hunt, hawk, joust and endure fatigue. But
the knight's effectiveness in battle depended not only upon himself
but upon a team of assistants — squire, page, grooms, armourer,
spare horses and packhorses. There were five or six non-combatants
for every man who fought. But the knight could not operate under
certain conditions — in mountains, woods, marsh, night or fog. He
was, like a modern tank, rather blind and rather dependent on
auxiliaries. He needed time to arm and so could be surprised in camp
unless guarded by infantry. Although relatively invulnerable in battle,
he might quite easily find himself taken prisoner. He was too highly
trained to know any occupations other than fighting, hunting and
acting as judge. And even the hunting was not purely for sport. As
Machiavelli pointed out:

He must follow the chase, by which he accustoms his body to hardship,

94 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

and learns something of the nature of localities, and gets to find out
how the mountains rise, how the valleys open out, how the plains
lie, and to understand the nature of rivers and marshes, and in all this
to take the greatest care.^

The art was, in fact, to learn from hunting what the modern soldier
learns from the map. A final characteristic of the knight lay in his
attitude towards women. Removed from his mother and sisters at the
age of seven, he was brought up in another household and there
taught to attend the ladies with respect. His actual education was
purely among men and his later way of life took him away from his
womenfolk for considerable periods. He tended, perhaps for this
reason, to idealise them; although not necessarily the one he had
married. During his absence, on a Crusade, for example, his family
might be almost unprotected.

From these and other factors, some of them religious, a pattern of
conduct emerges. To begin with, all knights in Christendom, (what-
ever their quarrels with each other) were agreed on the necessity of
maintaining their own order and making the peasants supply them
and their servants with food and drink. In warfare among themselves
they killed individuals but rarely slaughtered families of noble birth.
They spared women, clergy and children by mutual agreement,
partly to protect their own and avoid retaliation. They usually
spared each other's squires, pages and grooms, as non-combatants.
And the idea of sparing the unarmed leads at once to the indignation
felt on finding others less scrupulous. This leads in turn to the idea of
protecting the weak ; an idea implicit in the vows of knighthood. They
usually fought, almost by agreement, on a chosen field and in day-
light, without attempting any ruse, stratagem or surprise. They were
quite used to being taken prisoner (which was not disgraceful) and
treated their prisoners — if of equal rank — with just such consideration
as they hoped to receive. They had, in fact, a code of etiquette. It still
lingers, contrasting with the ideas of the Japanese, for example,
whose etiquette is different. They had a science of heraldry, partly to
identify friend and foe, superior and junior, on the battlefield; and
partly to trace descent. They had heralds, who could safely approach
the enemy. They abided, in general, by the rules of war.

What are the political implications of chivalry? It involves, first of
all, the idea of a politically privileged class, enjoying a particular
power and prestige but earning it by such a training as many might
fear to undergo and by such a continued and arduous service as
others might well prefer to avoid. In assessing the knight's special
prestige, inherited directly from nomadic traditions, we must
distinguish sharply between respect and envy. We feel envy, perhaps,

' The Prince. Trans, by W. K. Marriott. Everyman Edition. London, 1906.

FEUDALISM 95

for those who are wealthy and surrounded by luxury but reserve our
respect for those whose achievements are beyond us. The respect we
may feel for the climbers who conquered Everest is not unconnected
with the dismay we should most of us have felt if suddenly offered a
place in the team. The knight's code of honour contained no promise
of comfort but involved him in some risk of death. Of those who
stood aside when he passed, many would have firmly refused to
change places with him.

Chivalry next implies an idea of equality as between adult and
trained members of a particular order or society; a group as wide as
Christendom with a sort of language of its own. it was and is a pecu-
liar sort of equality, allowing of all the ranks of office like Constable
and Marshal, allowing of all the grades of nobility from Duke,
Marquis, Count and Baron down to plain Knight or Esquire, and
yet ensuring, for certain purposes, that all are on one footing as
gentlemen. The idea survives to this day in an Officers' Mess. It
survived until recently in the duel, a custom which used to expose all
gentlemen in an equal degree to a certain kind of risk. In Japan during
its feudal period the Samurai — distinguished from other folk, as
were European gentlemen, by the wearing of the sword — had some-
thing of the same equality, but not merely in fighting. They also
shared in common the obligation to commit suicide rather than
suffer dishonour. As no similar obligation lay on humbler people,
this is a parallel instance of an equality not of comfort but of danger.

Chivalry implies, lastly, a kind of sportsmanship which makes it
possible to reconcile conflict (nowadays verbal conflict, as for example
in Parliament) with courtesy, and even friendship, between oppo-
nents; a necessary aspect of political debate. The medieval knight
going to the aid of a wounded opponent was not only perpetuating
an old Arab custom but also furnishing the precedent according to
which an officer to-day may salute a prisoner of war who is senior to
him in rank. It is the tradition of a warfare confined by general
consent to certain people, certain places and even to certain times of
year. It was the better aspect of Feudalism that its tendency was to
keep warfare within bounds. The removal of these restrictions has
brought with it no very obvious advantage.

Chivalry was one aspect of Feudalism: Monasticism was another.
And indeed knighthood and monasticism have something in common
and actually overlapped in the military orders. But the Orders of
Knighthood were not as strict as the Rule of St. Benedict, which was
contemporary with the work of Justinian, based upon civil and canon
law, and upheld to this day as a monument of common sense; the
common sense expressed in the feeling that men who live without
women must not live without rules. The Rule of St. Benedict sets a

96 THE FVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Standard of monastic conduct, not too hard to be enforced nor 'too
easy-going to be a means of perfection',^ and provided for the monk
the same sort of training and test that knighthood did for the soldier.
The Abbot or Prior, the Abbess or Prioress, the Monk or Nun had
gained a certain place in the Feudal structure, a certain authority or
privilege in the world, partly by birth and partly by education but at
a price which was known to everybody. They were to be respected
rather than envied. And the world was thus provided with a set of
administrators, scholars and clerks who were unlikely to have per-
sonal ambitions of a certain kind, whose integrity was in some
measure established, and in whose relationship with each other there
was an element of equality as between members of an exclusive
society.

Politically, the monastic heritage is extremely important. The Rule
of St. Benedict and its later variants provided the models for a
written constitution. The procedure in Chapter provided a model
for the orderly conduct of business. The system of Visitation gave
precedent for any regular system of inspection. And, finally, the
sending of delegates to the annual Conferences or Chapters of the
Order (more especially the Dominican) was a thirteenth century
experiment in representative democracy.'^ There is something more
than symbolism in the fact that the English Parliament meets and
has always met in what used to be monastic precincts. It must,
however, be remembered that the monks of Christendom professed
an Oriental religion and had still earlier models of monasticism in
the East; models older than Christianity itself. Although the Buddhist
monastery had no higher organisation than the single (and often
large) community, its internal organisation was highly developed
pohtically as well as culturally. Control lay in a full meeting of the
members, provided there was a quorum and provided that the
decisions made were not opposed to Buddhist scripture.^ Something
of this practice may well have passed from Buddhist to Christian
monasteries.

Like monasteries, medieval cities also had their place in the feudal
system; and these offered a governmental pattern of their own. The
Ancient World had known both City States and Empires in which
City States were included. The City State was both a City and the
territory about it and such States were known in the Middle Ages,
Venice, for example, being one. There were City States ruled by a
Bishop, like Durham, the diocese and territory being one. But there
were also, in the Middle Ages, many rulers who lived in their castles
or moved round their estates, leaving cities to govern themselves.

* Saint Benedict and the Sixth Century. Dom John Chapman. London, 1929. p. 203.

* A History of Political Thcorv. G. H. Sabine. London, 1952. p. 268.

' See Theory oj Government in Ancient India. B. Prasad. Allahabad, 1927. pp. 321-330.

FEUDALISM 97

Many cities thus owed allegiance to a distant King or Emperor, but
to no one else, and yet had no territory outside their quite limited
boundaries. They were self-governing in a new way and gave a new
meaning to the word 'citizen'. For the Athenian or Roman voter was
originally a farmer, seen in the city only on market days. But the
citizen of Paris, Augsburg or London was almost certainly a crafts-
man or merchant and quite probably nothing else.^ Walled Cities
were packed tight with people and were too small — as a result of
economies in length of fortification — to develop much district feeling
within the walls. Their corporate loyalty was strong but the citizens
developed secondary loyalties to their Craft, Mystery or Guild.
Within each Guild, membership was graded, with apprentices,
journeymen, masters, aldermen and presiding Master. And the actual
government of the City was apt to be entrusted, in practice, to the
heads of Guilds in rotation. But these Guilds were not purely local.
Membership of a Mystery in one City carried with it at least an
honorary membership of the equivalent Mystery in the cities adjacent
or most nearly connected by trade. Guild membership was a super-
national organisation, in fact, very much like Monasticism or
Chivalry.

To complete the picture, there were the Universities. These offered
the same sort of privileged position, to be gained by much the same
laborious means. The scholar served the same sort of apprenticeship
as the Squire or Draper. He spent five or six years in mastering his
basic subjects — grammar, rhetoric and logic; arithmetic, geometry,
music and astronomy — before graduating in Arts. Only then could he
enter one of the higher Faculties of Theology, Law or Medicine. In
Theology a further six years might be spent in becoming Bachelor of
Divinity, and twelve or thirteen years altogether in achieving the
Doctorate. Once earned, the doctorate gave the right to lecture at
any university in Christendom, not merely at the University in which
the degree was obtained. Similarly, a Doctor of the Civil Law had a
high social status and was eligible for public office. Full membership
of a higher Faculty carried its privileges, in fact, but they had to be
earned before they could be enjoyed. In university life, again, there
was a measure of equality. It was, however, equality among people
similarly qualified who had gained a certain position by years of
eff"ort. The typical medieval institutions are all thus characterised. In
all there are the same elements: membership of an international
society; apprenticeship; the passing of a test; an oath of loyalty; the
recognition of a code of professional conduct; and the award of a
definite place in a respected hierarchy.

Although the merits of European Feudalism are worthy of note,

' See Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. VI. pp. 473-503.

98 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

they do not characterise feudalism wherever it appears. Elsewhere
and in general, the merits of feudalism are less tangible. The obvious
advantage of multiplying centres of semi-independent rule is that the
arts flourish in proportion to the potential number of patrons.
Whether we are to count the Buddhist temples in Japan, the palaces
in Italy or the Court Orchestras in eighteenth century Germany, we
are bound to recognise that the fragmentation of an Empire gives
great scope to the artist. And Confucius learnt more at different
courts than he would ever have learnt at one. As against that,
feudalism brings endless if petty warfare which, harmless as it may be
when compared with conflict on the national scale, creates a demand
for the restoration of order. Monarchy is hailed with relief by those
who have lived for long under a militant feudalism.

If we seek for a literature intended to justify feudalism as against
the arguments for a centralised efficiency, we shall find it less in
political treatises than in ballads, legends, chronicles and songs. The
praise of feudalism is implicit in the Song of Roland, the Japanese
legend of the Forty Ronin, the Border Ballads and the Chronicles of
Froissart. To reasonings about improved administration the Feud-
alists reply most effectively by trumpet calls, fluttering banners, the
names of heroes and a rousing chorus. These arguments are un-
answerable. It would be wrong, however, to conclude that there were
no arguments of a different kind. The Barons who drew up the
clauses of Magna Carta had a point of view. That they expressed it in
legal rather than philosophic terms is itself significant, for they
clearly regarded their relationship to the king as one to be defined by
law. In a later age, theorists were to speak of a social contract, real
or implied, between ruler and people. The Barons at Runnymede, at
once more powerful and more practical, drew up an actual contract
and made the king seal it. As a modern historian has emphasised:

The rule of law was the most clearly realized political principle of
the feudal age, governing the conduct of lord and vassal alike. . . .^

It follows that the political theories of feudalism are mostly in
legal form. Many, moreover, date from a period before any very
articulate peerage had emerged. It was only at a later date, when
national monarchies were already being established, that feudal
theories were occasionally invoked by those opposed to royal
absolutism. It is only in the sixteenth century and from rather isolated
sources that we learn what the case for feudalism had been. It appears,
for example, in a Defence oj Liberty against Tyrants- written in 1579,

' Ttie Constitutional History of Medieval England. J. E. A. JoilifTe. London, 1937.
p. 157.

- A Defence of Liberty against Tyrants. Ed., with introduction, by H. J. Laski from
the English edition of 1689. London, 1924.

FEU DA I, ISM 99

probably by Duplcssis-Mornay, adviser to Henry of Navarre.
What does the case for fcudahsm amount to? It is based on the
need to restrain royal power by law and contract. Nobles were of a
privileged class, having gained their special rights by birth and
training. Other classes — the bishops and clergy, abbots and monks,
university doctors and masters, master-craftsmen and burgesses — also
had special privileges which were secured by law and custom, parch-
ment and seal. As these privileges had been earned and usually paid
for, it was of the essence of the bargain that the law should be binding
on the king as well as on the subject. The law was therefore of
higher authority than the king; and the law had to be enforced. By
whom? Not by any individual noble but by any large group of nobles
who conceived that their 'liberties' had been infringed. And their
liberties included the powers they enjoyed over other people — even
royal powers as exercised, within their lordships, by the lords of the
Welsh Marches. As against a royal tyranny, exceeding the bounds of
law, the greater lords could oppose a military power greater than the
king's. If primarily guarding their own interests, it could be shown
that they were incidentally guarding the interests of others. They did
so, moreover, by virtue of the very feudal obligations by which they
were themselves bound. Vassalage was a contract binding on both
parties and not merely on the vassal. And the king, besides, was
vassal to God.

Briefly, even as those rebellious vassals who endeavour to possess
themselves of the kingdom, do commit felony by the testimony of all
laws, and deserve to be extirpated . . . now for that we see that God
invests kings into their kingdoms, almost in the same manner that
vassals are invested into their fees by their sovereign, we must needs
conclude that kings are the vassals of God, and deserve to be deprived
of the benefit they receive from their lord if they commit felony ... if
God hold the place of sovereign Lord, and the king as vassal, who dare
deny but that we must rather obey the sovereign than the vassal?^

Here is a useful doctrine for a restive nobility. But the author goes
further and remarks that the King of France makes his coronation
oath before twelve peers who represent the people as a whole, 'which
shows that these twelve peers are above the king'.'-^ This is not an
argument that would have appealed, at first sight, to Louis XIV. But
the author of A Defence of Liberty is on firm ground in preferring an
actual coronation oath to an imaginary social contract. He goes on
to explain that an oath of this kind is almost universal.

For neither the emperor, the king of France, nor the kings of Spain,
England, Polander, Hungary, and all the other lawful princes; as the

' A Defence of Liberty, op. cit. p. 79.
'/hid. p. 131.

100 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

archdukes of Austria, dukes of Brabante, earls of Flanders, and
Holland, nor other princes, are not admitted to the government of
their estates, before they have promised to the electors, peers, palatines,
lords, barons, and governors, that they will render to every one right
according to the laws of the country, yea, so strictly that they cannot
alter or innovate anything contrary to the privileges of the countries,
without the consent of the towns and provinces; if they do it, they are
no less guilty of rebellion against the laws than the people are in their
kind, if they refuse obedience when they command according to law.^

The author later draws a sharp contrast between a lawful king and
a mere tyrant. The former is distinguished by his willingness to share
power with his relatives and peers.

The tyrant advances above and in opposition to the ancient and
worthy nobility, mean and unworthy persons; to the end that these
base fellows, being absolutely his creatures, might applaud and apply
themselves to the fulfilling of all his loose and unruly desires. The king
maintains every man in his rank, honours and respects the grandees
as the kingdom's friends, desiring their good as well as his own.-

The advocate of Feudalism can thus show that a nobility is needed
to keep the king in check and that only a tyrant will use any but his
hereditary advisers. He could also have shown (had the point inter-
ested him) that the noble who resists illegal demands — conveyed
perhaps by 'mean and unworthy persons' — is the indirect means of
saving others from oppression. Perhaps the most eloquent defence of
feudalism ever uttered came from Edmund Burke as he saw its last
remnants destroyed in France. He laments the plight of Marie
Antoinette in a famous passage which concludes: —

. . . little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters
fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of
honour, and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have
leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her
with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, econo-
mists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is
extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous
loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedi-
ence, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude
itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the
cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic
enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that
chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired
courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it
touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its
grossness.^

'Ibid. p. 149.

^ A Defence of Liberty, op. cit. p. 185.

* Refleclions on the Revolution in France. Edmund Burke. Everyman, 1935. p. 73.

FEUDALISM 101

That there was a case for Feudalism in its strict sense, and for the
other institutions connected with it — chivalry, monasticism, cities
and universities — is sufficiently clear. That there was a case against it
is clearer still. For Feudalism, at its worst, could destroy the King-
dom. It could do so especially through the rebellious lord seeking
help from beyond the nearest frontier. It could do so in a different way
if feudal lords tried to replace the king by a committee of themselves,
lacking as they would any real trust in each other. It could do so,
finally, in the event of a disputed succession with diff"erent parties
supporting different candidates for the throne. Considered in isola-
tion, feudalism was more dangerous than useful. It must, however,
be remembered that European aristocracy, a more hopeful form of
government, was rooted in feudal traditions. The aristocrats who
sought and obtained control of the central government had still a
measure of feudal interest in the provinces. More than that, they
inherited from the feudal lord that determination to protect the rights
of the individual as against the State. The individual was always
essentially the feudal lord himself but the freedom he sought for his
own family was extended gradually to other families as well. The
defence of liberties merged imperceptibly into the struggle for
freedom.

CHAPTER VIII

Aristocracy

ARISTOCRACY, the rule of the respected few, is normally the
^ sequel to monarchy. It is easier for an aristocracy to establish
its power within a state already formed, inside boundaries already
defined and through institutions already in existence. Nor is it
necessary for the monarchy to disappear. The Egyptian monarchy,
the earliest of which the history is known, was largely overshadowed
by the nobility during the fifth dynasty (2750-2250 B.C.) and still
more during the sixth, but the monarchy, in form, remained. The
same was roughly true of China under the Han Dynasty. At Sparta,
a predominantly aristocratic state, the dual kingship survived and
with a share of influence. At Athens the monarchy gave place quietly
to aristocracy during the eighth century. At Rome, by contrast, the
kings were dethroned, about 509 B.C., by the nobles, and the kingship
lingered on only in the form of the Rex Sacrorum, a sacrificial oflRce
of minor importance. Rome provides perhaps the best early example
of aristocracy in its republican form.

Rome is first known to us as a City State of an almost Greek
pattern but with a marked geographical difference. Rome is placed
neither in a mountain valley nor on an island. It is not even on the
coast. ^ It lies halfway up the Italian peninsula, at the lowest point at
which the Tiber could be bridged, and in the middle of a not very
defensible plain. This plain, in turn, forms a part of a geographical
area sharply defined by the Alps and the sea. The Romans had a
strong motive to enlarge their territory to its natural limits and they
quite soon controlled an area larger than, say, Attica. They were
neither traders nor seamen- and so extended their territory not by
colonisation but by adding one adjacent area to another. In 294 B.C.
the male citizens of military age numbered 262,321. By 169 B.C. they
numbered 312,885. By the middle of the third century there must have
been a million people other than aliens and slaves. Politically, their
problem resembled neither that of the Athenians nor that of the
Hindoos. Rome was a monarchy when its territorial expansion began

' Geographic Background of Greek and Roman History. M. Cary. Oxford, 1949.
pp. 130-133.

- See An Economic History of Rome. T. Frank. London, 1927. p. 118.

102

ARISTOCRACY 103

but with a nobility comprising the leaders or elders of the original
tribes of Latium. These were the Patricians, members of 'gentes' or
known families, alone able at first to bear office. Beneath them, a
wider class of Equites included those able to provide themselves with
a horse for service in war. The respective words, the one suggesting
fatherhood and the other the cavalryman's prestige, are significant.
It was the Patricians who rid themselves of the Monarchy and divided
the royal power between two officers, the Consuls, each elected for
one year.

The problem, for an aristocracy, is one of preventing (on the one
hand) a revival of kingship and (on the other) a revolt of the people.
The two Consuls represented a Patrician device to serve the former
purpose. Each had civil, military and judicial powers, but the one
was a check on the other and their period of office was short. The
Republic lasted, in fact, for about 250 years, guarded by a complex
but unwritten constitution, it would hardly have lasted so long if the
Patricians had not yielded to the. pressure of wealthy men of Plebeian
birth. They yielded to a growing pressure between 471 and 367 B.C.,
finally allowing one of the two Consuls to be a Plebeian. The poorer
Plebs played a part in the struggle and gained some elective functions.
The wealthier Plebs were virtually admitted to an aristocracy which
they considerably strengthened. Rome acquired, as a result, a mixed
constitution, predominantly aristocratic but with elements of
democracy and monarchy. •

This constitution was never planned as a whole, it embodied the
political gains of various groups and so represented a balance of
forces. Such a balance can be maintained in two ways; either by the
continued pull of the same forces, each as weighty as at first, or else
by a legal stabilisation of the positions gained, it was by law, written
or unwritten, that the position was stabilised; and law, in Rome,
became extremely important. The leading Romans were mostly to
combine in themselves the character of lawyer and soldier — the two
professions which most promote a sense of reality. Starting with a
complex political structure, they hammered out something workable
and did this without resorting to any theorist. Cato claimed, accord-
ing to Cicero, that the Roman Republic was not framed by any one
genius but by the work of generations. This was true and it was the
cause of the multiplicity of public offices and assemblies which seems,
in retrospect, so confusing. Besides the two Consuls were six Consular
Tribunes, a number of Praetors (eventually, sixteen), two Censors,
five (and ultimately ten) Tribunes, four Aediles, four (and finally
forty) Quaestors, twenty-six police magistrates (the XXVI viri) and a
number of Military Tribunes. All above the rank of Military

' Roman Political Insliiutions. L . P. Homo. London, 1929.

104 THH EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Tribune had a mixture of administrative, legal, financial and judicial
duties. All without exception were elected for a limited term of office.

Election is quite compatible with aristocracy provided that the
same people, or the same sort of people, are always chosen. This was
ensured in Rome by two devices; the 'cursus honorum' and the
distribution of votes. The 'cursus honorum' was the accepted rule by
which no one was eligible for election to a higher office until he had
served in a lower. The man with political ambitions had to enter, at
about the age of eighteen, a series of alternating military and civil
offices which might lead him to election, finally, as Consul. The
periods of office and periods of ineligibility were such as to prevent
anyone becoming Consul before the age of 43. As a political career
thus admitted of no other activity, and as the offices were mostly
unpaid, the 'cursus honorum' was open only to those already wealthy
at the age of eighteen and with an assured income for life.

The distribution of votes was most carefully planned in the
Comitia Centuriata, to which all Roman citizens belonged. This mass
meeting voted by Centuries, the citizens being organised on military
lines, and each century recorded one vote, that of its own majority.
This might have been a democratic system had the Centuries each
numbered one hundred voters. In fact, however, while each Eques-
trian Century numbered one hundred (and there were eighteen of
these) the other Centuries, graded on a property qualification, varied
in strength from 142-200 in the Pedites of the First Class and 320 in
Classes 2 to 5, down to 130,000 in the Proletarian Century. The
Centuries numbered 193 in all, so that the Equites and the Pedites
1st Class had by themselves, if they agreed, a bare majority of 98
votes. If there was disagreement the twenty Centuries of the 2nd
Class voted until 97 votes had been recorded. Then the voting stopped
and the result was announced. The third, fourth, fifth and unclassified
Centuries rarely had occasion to vote at all. Within each Century
voting was secret, voters collecting in an enclosure and each recording
his vote as he left by ballots marked U.R. (uti rogas) or A (antiquo),
by writing the name of the candidate on a 'tabella', or (on cases of
criminal appeal) by ballots marked L (libero) and D (damno). The
functions of this important assembly included the declaring of war,
the passing of legal enactments on the recommendation of Senate,
and the election of Consuls, Censors and Praetors.

More democratic was the Concilium Plebis, which comprised in
theory 250,000 or 300,000 voters and met on market days. No con-
siderable proportion of them could in fact be collected. Had it been
possible, moreover, the difficulty would have been to explain to them
the point at issue. Tribunes and Plebeian Aediles were elected by this
Assembly, which may sometimes have tested the relative popularity

ARISTOCRACY 105

of the candidates — or their popularity, at any rate, among a chance
collection of the unemployed. In practice, however, those eligible to
stand for election had to have served previously as Legatus Legionis
(or some other army rank), as Quaestor before that, and previously
as military Tribune and police magistrate. To these earlier offices
they had been appointed without troubling the Concilium Plebis and,
if of Patrician birth, they need not seek election there at all. The
Concilium Plebis was essentially a safety valve by which popular
discontent could, in the last resort, make itself felt.^ So far as election
went, the voters merely had to chose between men of the same sort, all
of rank and property, all with legal and military training, all members
of a definite class with its own social customs and standards of con-
duct. They could not have suddenly elected one of themselves and
there is little evidence that they would have chosen to do so even if
given the chance.

We have seen that the institutions which were democratic in form
were aristocratic in practice. But the whole structure centred upon an
institution, the Senate, which was not democratic even in theory.
This body, with important functions in foreign policy, finance and
legislation, comprised at first 300 (later 600) members, all of whom
held or (as in most cases) had previously held, high magisterial office.
They were not elected but passed automatically into Senate on com-
pletion of their period of office. Senate had thus about twenty new
members each year, roughly replacing its losses by death. It was
summoned and presided over by a Consul or, in his absence, by the
Praetor Urbanus, who introduced the business to be discussed.
Having done so, he asked the opinion of each Senator in turn until
the sense of the house had become apparent. Each Senator could
speak for as long as he liked — and not necessarily :;o the motion —
and could even, by continuing until sunset, talk the motion out. The
president brought the discussion to an end when he saw fit and put
the matter — although this was rarely necessary — to the vote. Magis-
trates in office did not vote. The rest moved to one side or other of the
house. The motion carried might be vetoed as unconstitutional but
would otherwise become a 'senatus consultum' with legal effect,
recorded and announced. In legislative matters the 'senatus con-
sultum' did not become a law (lex) until passed in turn by an
assembly. There were no organised parties and little use was made of
committees. No minutes were kept and the proceedings were com-
paratively brief. The Roman of Republican days was a man of few
words and the more senior seem, in practice, to have swayed the rest
by their reputation more than by their eloquence.^

' See Roman Political Institutions. F. F. Abbott. Boston, 1911. Chapter X, pp. 220-
243. See also Roman Public Life. A. H. J. Greenidge. London, 1930.

» Roman Public Life. A. H. J. Greenidge. London, 1930. Chapter VI. pp. 261-272.

106 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Viewed as a structure or mechanism, the Roman constitution seems
complex, confused and unworkable. It had, to all appearance, too
many legislatures, too many independent officials, too many elections
and too many rules. No distinction was ever made between legislative,
executive and judicial functions, nor even between military and civil.
It worked, nevertheless, to some purpose. Rome was governed, in
effect, by a class of men of similar birth, similar training, similar
experience and (one might add) similar limitations. They all under-
stood each other very well and probably reached agreement privately
before Senate even met. The magistrates could have nullified the
powers of Senate. But why should they? They were magistrates only
for a time and thereafter Senators for life. The Senators might have
obstructed the work of those in office. But why should they? They
had all been in office themselves. Senate might have become danger-
ously divorced from the people at large. But it was not altogether
closed to talent, nor entirely insensitive to upper middle-class
opinion. The people, finally, might have found means to demand a
share in government. But the Roman ruling class was a true aris-
tocracy. Its members were respected for their courage and ability,
not merely envied for their wealth. Of the aristocrats, every one had
served in the field without disgrace, every one had a legal and adminis-
trative training, every one had served as executive and judge. They
affected, moreover, a Spartan simplicity in dress and manner,
resting their influence merely on birth, reputation and known
achievement They were able, between them, to conquer the known
world.

There have been other ruling aristocracies besides that of Rome.
Nor are these confined to the West. The Chinese aristocracy, ruling at
certain periods through Imperial machinery of government, was
unlike the Roman in being more cultured and better educated, with
a sharp distinction drawn between civil and military functions. The
same would be true of the Japanese aristocrats of the Fujiwara period
but with this difference that they also produced a class of educated
women, whose diaries and novels were to form a valuable part of the
literature of Japan. In a complete study of the subject, such as cannot
be attempted here, a variety of evidence could be compiled. It may,
however, be doubted whether any modern example of aristocracy can
be as interesting or complete as that afforded by seventeenth-nine-
teenth century England. It is all the more interesting in that the
adjacent countries, showing the same tendencies, failed to achieve the
same result. They failed, moreover, for reasons which throw con-
siderable light on the nature of effective aristocratic rule. The
Monarchy which rested on Divine Right in the sixteenth-seventeenth
centuries weakened during the eighteenth century and tended.

ARISTOCRACY 107

throughout Europe, to turn either into aristocracy or into Monarchy
self-justified in terms of enhghtenment. But the success of the aristoc-
racies in supplanting monarchy varied with the way in which the
aristocracies were formed. In some important respects, the Enghsh
aristocracy resembled no other.

To realise the difference between the English and most other
aristocracies we must observe, first of all, that the English language
has no equivalent of the French 'de', the German 'von' or the Dutch
'van'. English Barons and Baronets are 'of a named locality but not
to the extinction of their original surname. And, as between surnames,
there has never been a clear distinction between what is noble and what
is not. We must next observe that the English law of primogeniture,
in confining technical nobility to the eldest son, throws emphasis on
an actual title, within the power of the Crown to bestow, and dis-
regards the prestige of birth, which the younger sons must equally
share. With these basic peculiarities, the English nobility was further
modified in its membership by the salient events in English history.
Most of the great medieval houses had become extinct, through battle
and attainder, during the Wars of the Roses. The Dukedoms of
Cornwall and Lancaster had been absorbed by the Royal House. A
new nobility, recruited from the landed gentry and merchants, had
grown up as a result of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. But this
in turn was involved in the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century,
many of the older families being ruined by fines and confiscations. By
1660 most of the English estates had changed hands repeatedly. Of
the surviving nobility hardly one could claim what the French would
have described as ancestry. Families of the 'Ancienne chevalerie' in
France claimed to have been noble since 1360. More than that,
however, they needed to establish (before obtaining a commission in
the army) their noble descent on both sides. They had to show
sixteen quarterings in their coat-of-arms. It is to be doubted whether
any English family could have shown that — let alone the thirty-two
quarterings which were boasted in some fantastic and crumbling
chateaux. Queen Elizabeth could not have done so, one of her an-
cestors having been Lord Mayor of London. As for the noble houses,
they had been constantly marrying, to their advantage, into the families
of lawyers, wine-merchants, shipowners and adventurers. Nor were
their younger sons averse to trade. As Voltaire pointed out, at the
time when Sir Robert Walpole governed Great Britain, his
younger brother was no more than a Factor at Aleppo. It was this
absence of caste which facilitated the concentration of political,
military, religious and financial powers among the same people. The
English aristocracy of the eighteenth century was, in fact, a body of
very mixed origin, constantly recruited from below, with highly

108 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

developed instincts in law and business. By French standards, noble
birth in England simply did not exist.

The aristocrat, in the English sense, first appears in the reign of
Elizabeth. He was a man of respectable family, who at least knew
who his grandfather was. He was a landowner of considerable wealth
and made up in education for what he lacked in ancestry. He was
something of a scholar and often a musician or poet. He was an
athlete, a horseman and soldier and sometimes a seaman as well.
By the early seventeenth century his training had been standardised.
From the village school or a private tutor, he went to the grammar or
public school. Then he entered the University and completed his
groundwork in Latin, Mathematics, Divinity and perhaps Greek,
Leaving Oxford or Cambridge, very probably without graduating,
he next attended the Inns of Court and obtained at least a smattering
of law. Then he set off on the Grand Tour to France, Germany and
Italy, spending a year or more in learning French and Italian. There
followed a campaign or two in the Low Countries. After that he was
fit for duty as Justice of the Peace, fit to appear at Court and fit
before long to take a seat in Parliament. How developed even before
then were the traditions of Parliament may be learnt from a treatise
of 1562-6, published in 1583.

... In the disputing is a mervelous good order used in the lower house.
He that standeth uppe bareheaded is understanded that he will speake
to the bill. If more stande up, who that first is judged to arise, is first
harde, though the one doe prayse the law, the other diswade it, yet
there is no altercation. For everie man speaketh as to the speaker, not
as one to an other, for that is against the order of the house. It is also
taken against the order to name him whom ye doe confute, but by
circumlocution, as he that speaketh with the bill, or he that spake
against the bill and gave this and this reason. And so with perpetual!
Oration not with altercation, he goeth through till he do make an end.
He that once hath spoken on a bill though he be confuted straight,
that day may not replie, no though he would channge his opinion. So
that to one bill in one day one may not in that house speake twise, for
else one or two with altercation woulde spende all the time.^

Such rules of debate as these were the work of gentlemen, lawyers,
merchants and soldiers; men of great experience. There was little of
democracy about it but there was evidence of a close alliance between
aristocracy and middle class. It provided a good school of statesman-
ship even when the House of Lords was more important. By the late
seventeenth century moreover the English aristocrat rarely made a
mistake over architecture, gardens, portraits, trees, horses or dogs.
He was rightly trained for his main political task, which was to

' De Republica Angloniin: A Discourse on the Commonwealth of England. By Sir
Thomas Smith. Ed. by L. Alston, p. 34.

ARISTOCRACY 109

establish aristocratic government under the guise of monarchy.

The fall of James II and the crowning of William and Mary brought
in a weakened monarchy, dependent on the party which had brought
about the revolution of 1688 ; a party which might turn at any time to
intrigue with the fallen king. What is remarkable is the speed and
certainty with which the English aristocrats set up a government of
their own, retaining a diminished kingship but effectively concen-
trating the power in their own hands. By the middle of the eighteenth
century the Government, the Parliament, the Church, the Army and
the Universities were all so many different aspects of aristocracy. And
all Europe watched to see what the result would be in terms of
strength or weakness. The answer came in the Seven Years War of
1756-63 and the total defeat of France. Henceforth the upholders of
monarchy could say, if they wished, that an aristocratic form of rule
was impious, unprecedented and wrong. But they could not regard it
as unworkable, and they could not deny its success.

To what was this success due? It was due, no doubt, in part, to
causes unconnected with the form of government as established. But,
such causes apart, aristocracy revealed a certain strength of its own.
It combined scope for individual enterprise with a certain consistency
in public effort. Sea power, trade and colonisation formed an intricate
pattern in which war was used to capture trade and trade increased to
pay for war. Only an aristocracy of that peculiar kind could have
achieved its purpose in that peculiar way. It was the close connection
between statesmen, admirals, shipowners, planters, underwriters,
gentry, soldiers and bankers that made success possible. More than
that, the structure of society provided initiative where it was wanted
(on the fringes of a growing empire) and consistency where that was
wanted (at the centre). The policies of kings proved, for the purposes
of naval war, at once too interfering and too variable. Where so much
depends upon a single man, policy may waver when he falls sick or
grows old. Policy may be reversed when he dies. But the solid
commercial interests of a governing class are fairly permanent in
their nature. Behind the brilliance or eccentricity of the individual
lurks the abiding purpose of a class.

CHAPTER IX
Aristocracy justified in Theory

THE essence of aristocracy lies in the respect accorded to the
aristocrat by others; a respect to be enhanced more by deeds
than words. Respect, moreover, is rarely accorded to those who
demand it. In a well established and etTectivc aristocracy the member
of the ruling class assumes, but does not explain, his superiority.
Should he be compelled to justify his power, it will be proof that his
position is crumbling. The order obeyed without question comes
normally from someone to whom the possibility of disobedience does
not even occur. It is natural, therefore, that books written avowedly
to justify aristocracy arc rare. And aristocracy is apt to masquerade
as something else; as monarchy sometimes or even as democracy.
The true aristocrat is respected for his virtues; and modesty is one
of them.

The only superiority a man can claim without some loss of dignity
is that of descent. For one thing, the claim can be silent; the display
of a name, a title, a coat-of-arms. For another, the superiority claimed
is not one of personal merit but of ancestry. It is permissible to claim
for an ancestor what one cannot claim for oneself. As against this, the
most effective aristocracy is one in which noble birth plays only a
minor part. In such an aristocracy, continually recruited from below
and always sensitive to the opinion of the people (or, anyway, the
people who matter), to boast of ancestry may give actual offence to
others. Among the ruling class of eighteenth-nineteenth century
England there were men without birth, fortune or even any very
obvious ability; people who were 'in society' through being thought
amusing, good-looking, well-dressed or somehow useful. It was and
had always been impossible to say who exactly the aristocrats were, or
why. So that English defenders of aristocracy appeared, in general, to
be defending something else; usually, the constitution. The theorists
of Republican Rome had no easier task and our earliest justifications
of aristocracy are no more candid about it than are the most recent.

The Romans were not themselves given to theorising about politics
and they left it to a Greek, Polybius, to explain their institutions to
posterity. He had at least the merit of knowing his subject, being held
in Italy as a hostage of the Achaean League for sixteen years, from
167 to 151 ».(". His main intention was to write a history of the

110

ARISTOCRACY JUSTIFIED IN THEORY 111

Republic and it was only incidentally that he paused to study the
principles of Roman government.^ He follows Aristotle in assuming
a sequence in the forms of rule, postulating a periodic return to
barbarism as the result of pestilence, famine and flood. He suggests
that the sequence in the forms of rule can be arrested only by com-
bining them in a constitution wherein the subversive tendencies of
each are counteracted by the rest. He finds such a system in that
planned for Sparta by Lycurgus and thinks that the Romans have
reached the same goal by a less theoretical route. He explains how the
Consul is held in check by the Senate and the Senate in turn by the
Assemblies, the members of which will come, as soldiers, under the
absolute power of the Consul. Cicero (who should have known better)
follows this theory in his Republic and concludes, in effect, that every-
thing has been so wisely arranged by the Romans' ancestors that there
is little or no reason to alter anything. At the time he wrote it was in
fact altering itself fairly rapidly and heading, indeed, for a state of
anarchy which could end only in dictatorship. What he describes is,
in eflfect, the Republic he would have liked to preserve. And he
regards it, as Polybius did, as a balanced regime, not as an example of
aristocracy in decline. That it was a declining aristocracy is apparent,
nevertheless, from all that followed.

From the time of the Roman Republic down to the end of the
seventeenth century a.d. there are few examples of aristocracy in
Europe, and such as there are seem to be limited in scale. Venice was
ruled by an aristocracy of merchants but so, in a sense, were many
other medieval towns. The Venetian example, interesting as it is,
rises hardly above the level (in scale) of the City State. Where, how-
ever, as in the Netherlands, a federation of City States comes into
existence, the opportunity occurs for aristocracy on a rather larger
scale. The opportunity was there but the Dutch inclined rather more
towards democracy and served, with England, to discredit that form
of rule. One of the greatest of Dutchmen, Hugo Grotius (1583-1645),
who first defined the word 'State' for the purposes of International
Law,^ gave his decided preference for Monarchy. It remained for
England to demonstrate the merits of aristocratic rule, doing so in
conscious imitation of Rome. The seventeenth century had witnessed
a struggle in England between monarchy and aristocracy; a struggle
only possible because the aristocrats disagreed with each other about
religion. The momentary result was an experiment in democracy

' A History of Political Theories, Ancient and Medieval. W. A. Dunning. New York,
1927. pp. 113-114.

^ A community of Western and Christian civilisation, with an organised government
capable of making and observing treaties, with a fixed territory within which its
sovereignty is complete, and a stability which seems likely to offer permanence. See
Western Political Thought. An Historical Introduction from the Origins to Rousseau.
John Bowie. London 1947. Chapters IV and VII.

112 THF FVOIUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

which ended promptly in military dictatorship. This brief experience
convinced the English that monarchy was preferable to either and the
restoration of Charles II in 1660 might have, just conceivably, re-
sulted in a monarchy of the fashion set by France. But the astute
Charles II was succeeded by a Roman Catholic. This sufficed to unite
the two religious parties for just long enough to dethrone James II
and instal William of Orange in his place. From 1688 the belief of
the English aristocracy was that monarchy was necessary, as had
already been proved, but that the real power must be vested in them-
selves. To explain what they had done, and what they intended, they
needed their own political prophet. In John Locke they found him.
John Locke (1632-1704) was a scholar patronised by the Earl of
Shaftesbury who came to England, from exile, in 1689, and published
his two Treatises of Government in 1690. His first object was to
demolish the Putriarcha of Sir Robert Filmer, in vogue since 1680;
his second, to justify the Revolution of 1688 by proving that
sovereignty lies in the community, not in the king. It is needless
to follow Locke all the way in his refutation of Filmer, for the dis-
cussion is one which must seem to us rather futile. Filmer had rightly
insisted that paternity is, in some sense, the origin of political power.
But his attempt to show that the Stuart kings had their sovereignty by
a right of descent or right of conveyance going back to Adam is not
particularly helpful. Locke writes eleven chapters to show that this
claim is baseless and finally summarises his argument in a more
compact form, as follows: — ^

Firstly. That Adam had not, either by natural right of fatherhood or by

positive donation from God, any such authority over his children, nor

dominion over the world, as is pretended.

Secondly. That if he had, his heirs yet had no right to it.

Thirdly. That if his heirs had . . . the right of succession . . . could not

have been certainly determined.

Fourthly. That if even that had been determined, yet the knowledge of

which is the eldest line . . . [is] . . . utterly lost.

With this reasoning we may agree, turning however with some
relief to his more constructive work in Book II. Locke begins his own
theory of government by firmly stating that men are born equal when
in a state of nature.

This equality of men by Nature, the judicious Hooker looks upon
as so evident in itself and beyond all question, that he makes it the
foundation of that obligation to mutual love amongst men on which
he builds the duties they owe one another and from whence he derives
the great maxims of justice and charity."

^ Of Civil Government. John Locke. Everyman edition. London, 1943. p. 117.
^Ibid. p. 119.

ARISTOCRACY JUSTIFIED IN THEORY 113

Actually, Hooker is not quite as definite as that. He merely asserts
that:

Every independent multitude, before any certain form of regiment
established, hath, under God's supreme authority, full dominion over
itself, even as a man not tied with the bond of subjection as yet unto
any other, hath over himself the like power.^

Locke nevertheless assumes agreement and goes on to maintain
that men are also born free except in that the Law of Nature enjoins
each 'that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm
another in his life, health, liberty or possessions'. The duty of en-
forcing this law is vested in all alike. The right of property derives
from the value of work put into it. Children are born in a subordina-
tion to parents but outgrow it and thereafter need merely honour
their parents. He admits that parental authority tends, in practice, to
linger. 'Thus the natural fathers of families, by an insensible change,
became the politic monarchs of them too' and sometimes left able and
worthy heirs. But this, he insists, does not create Civil Government,
the characteristic of which is law and its impartial enforcement.
Political Society derives not from fatherhood but from agreement.

Men being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal and independ-
ent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political
power of another without his own consent, which is done by agreeing
with other men, to join and unite into a community for their comfort-
able, safe, and peaceable living, one amongst another, in a secure
enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that
are not of it. . . . When any number of men have so consented to make
one community or government, they are thereby presently incorpora-
ted, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to
act and conclude the rest.

Locke here postulates a society formed before the nature of its
government has been agreed. He meets the objection that no account
exists of men so forming a political society by explaining that
'Government is everywhere antecedent to records ... [so that] ... it is
with commonwealths as with particular persons, they are commonly
ignorant of their own births and infancies. . . .' He goes on, however,

I will not deny that if we look back as far as history will direct us,
towards the original of commonwealths, we shall generally find them
under the government and administration of one man.^

He even admits that in small family societies, 'government com-
monly began in the father'. But when different families came to live
together, and when a father died 'it is not to be doubted, but they

' The Political Ideas of Richuid Hooker. E. T. Davics. London, 1946. p. 65. Hooker
asserts the 'Contract' theory as did, later. Bishop Hoadly.
- Locke, op. lit. p. 168.

114 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

used their natural freedom to set up him whom they judged the
ablest. . . .'

Conceding that the earliest governments of which we have record
were monarchical, he asks why people 'generally pitched upon this
form'. He refers to the example of paternal rule, to men's initial
inexperience of tyranny and to the need for leadership in war, and
concludes that men would naturally 'choose the wisest and bravest
man to conduct them in their wars . . . and in this chiefly be their
ruler'. He points out, however, that forms of government vary. The
important thing is that men voluntarily enter it by agreement. They
do this in order to preserve their property, obtain an impartial judge
and ensure that his judgments are enforced. In thus forming a
society they give up to it their original equality, liberty and executive
power. But the power of the society must be for the common good
and must achieve the three basic purposes for which it was formed,
and thus ensure 'the peace, safety and public good of the people'.
This can be done through democracy, oligarchy or monarchy, or any
compromise between them.^ But, whatever the form of government,
the supreme power must be the legislative.

The legislative power, though supreme, is not limitless. It can be no
greater than the power originally entrusted to it by individuals. And
they cannot give to it what they do not possess. As no one has the
right to destroy or enslave either himself or anyone else, that right
cannot have been transferred to the legislative. That body, therefore,
'can never have a right to destroy, enslave or designedly to impoverish
the subjects'. By similar reasoning, the fact that no man can be judge
in his own cause prevents the individual from conferring any such
rights on the legislative. The judicial power must be separate. Govern-
ment must be by declared laws, enforced by authorised judges.

These are the bounds which the trust that is put in them by the
society and the law of God and Nature have set to the legislative
power of every Commonwealth, in all forms of government. First:
They are to govern by promulgated established laws, not to be varied
in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the
favourite at Court and the countryman at plough. Secondly : These laws
also ought to be designed for no other end ultimately but the good of the
people. Thirdly: They must not raise taxes on the property of the
people without the consent of the people given by themselves or their
deputies. And this properly concerns only such governments where the
legislative is always in being, or at least where the people have not
reserved any part of the legislative to deputies, to be from time to time
chosen by themselves. Fourthly : Legislative neither must nor can trans-
fer the power of making laws to anybody else or place it anywhere
but where the people have.'

' Locke, op. cit. p. 189.

' Locke, op. cit. pp. 182-183.

ARISTOCRACY JUSTIFIED IN THEORY 115

Locke argues that the supreme power cannot take any man's
property without his consent.

. . . For the preservation of property being the end of government, and
that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and re-
quires that the people should have property, without which they must
be supposed to lose that by entering into society which was the end
for which they entered into it; too gross an absurdity for any man
to own.

True, there must be taxation but only by the consent of the
majority, given by themselves or by their representatives.

Locke maintains that there must be, in addition to the legislative
body, 'a power always in being which should see to the execution of
the laws' and a power to deal with 'war and peace, leagues and
alliances'. These two powers must, in practice, be the same and with
the additional duty, most likely, of convening the legislative body.
But the legislative, which Locke conceives as only periodically in
session, remains superior to the executive power, normally entrusted
to a single man.

Where the legislative and executive power are in distinct hands, as
they are in all moderated monarchies and well-framed governments,
there the good of the society requires that several things should be left
to the discretion of him that has the executive power.^

He considers that the ruler must have a certain discretion, if only
to prevent injustice by a too strict observance of the law. This is
prerogative, an equity which may come in time to be embodied in the
law, such being no encroachment on prerogative.

Those who say otherwise speak as if the prince had a distinct and
separate interest from the good of the community, and was not made
for it; the root and source from which spring almost all those evils
and disorders which happen in kingly governments.

But Locke is careful to explain that the prerogative of a king should
be something far short of despotism, which is no less than

... an absolute arbitrary power one man has over another, to take
away his life whenever he pleases; and this is a power which neither
Nature gives, for it has made no such distinction between one man and
another, nor compact can convey. For man, not having such an
arbitrary power over his own life, cannot give another man power over
it, but it is the effect only of forfeiture which the aggressor makes of his
own life when he puts himself into the state of war with another. . . .
And thus captives, taken in a just and lawful war, and such only, are
subject to a despotical power.^

■ Ibid. p. 199.

^ Locke, op. cit. p. 205.

116 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Locke quotes James I as stating that he was bound by 'the funda-
mental laws of his kingdom', both tacitly and by coronation oath,
and but for that would be a mere tyrant. He explains, however, that it
is not only monarchies that may be tyrannical. 'Wherever law ends,
tyranny begins'. And the resistance to an unlawful tyranny may lead
to the dissolution of government.

This last subject is discussed in Chapter XIX.* Governments are
overturned, he explains, in two ways; by foreign conquest, or by in-
ternal dissension. Foreign conquest destroys society itself and needs
no further comment. Internal dissension may cause the legislative to
break up or dissolve, as for instance when the prince 'sets up his own
arbitrary will in place of the laws' or 'hinders the legislative from
assembling ... or from acting freely'. The prince can produce the
same result by tampering with the electoral system, by betraying the
State to a foreign power, or (finally) by so neglecting and abandoning
his office that the laws are no longer enforced. The government can
be as readily overturned through the legislative or the prince making
themselves 'masters or arbitrary disposers of the lives, liberties or
fortunes of the people'. For as the reason 'why men enter into society
is the preservation of their property', a failure to preserve it destroys
government and justifies revolt. Even the legislative can become
corrupt.

The end of government is the good of mankind; and which is best
for mankind, that the people should be always exposed to the bound-
less will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes liable to be
opposed when they grow exorbitant in the use of their power, and
employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation, of the proper-
ties of their people?"

Locke's general argument, of which the above is more or less the
conclusion, can be summarised thus: — Men are born equal, with
equal rights under the Law of Nature. They agree with each other to
form a society, mainly to preserve property and secure justice.
Justice can derive only from law; so the supreme power in society
must be the legislative. But even the legislative is limited in power by
the original agreement; nor may it encroach on the powers of the
judiciary. There must also be an executive, probably a single ruler,
but he too must be restrained by law. Finally, when the legislative is
overturned, the society is dissolved and men are free to rebel and
start afresh with another mutual agreement.

As an argument this may not seem particularly impressive. The
basic assumptions are far less convincing than those of Sir Robert

' Locke, op. cit. p. 224.
• Locke, op. cit. p. 233.

ARISTOCRACY JUSTIFIED IN THEORY 117

Filmer, and the theory of the formation of society by agreement is
quite unhistorical. If the agreement does not exist, the proper
limitations in the power of legislative and executive are not estab-
lished; and the right of rebellion remains as doubtful as ever. The
argument need convince no one. But Locke's treatises are significant
in that they embody four vital political ideas, arising not from aca-
demic theories but from the political experience of his generation.
These reiterated ideas are Property, Law, the Separation of Legis-
lative, Executive and Judicial powers, and the Limits set to the powers
of government as such. These have proved potent ideas, especially in
America. But it might not seem, at first sight, that Locke had pro-
duced exactly the arguments needed to support an aristocracy in
power following the Revolution of 1688. This talk of original equality
might not be greeted with any deafening applause in the House of
Lords. But all that was merely theoretical stuff which few politicians
would bother to read. His essential, positive doctrines — property, law,
the separation of powers and the limits set to government — all add
up to one thing, and that is Freedom; or the freedom, anyway, of the
property owner. And while the Peers of 1688 intended to keep power
for themselves (as against the king), the gentry at large cared more
for freedom than for a share in government. Locke says nothing
directly to justify aristocracy. How could he? In England aristocracy
could never be justified for it could not even be defined. It did not
mean birth; it never meant title; it did not always mean wealth; it
seldom meant even dress, fashion or accent, and rarely could be
equated with education. Its most stable feature was personal freedom
and property in land, to be defended by law against the interference
of government. And this defence of property and freedom rested with
a legislature representative of property and a judiciary which govern-
ment could not control.

The English aristocracy, like their feudal predecessors at Runny-
mede, involuntarily secured for others what they were intent only to
gain for themselves. To have secured freedom for the peerage would,
in England, have left all their younger brothers in bondage. To have
limited privileges to men with a coat-of-arms dating from before 1500
would have excluded half the people who were obviously important.
To have confined privileges to men with a coat of arms dating from
before 1360 would have excluded practically everyone. Explanations
of what constituted an 'esquire' or 'gentleman' were never more than
partly successful, including as they did a fair number of those it was
intended to keep out and excluding a few of those who had obviously
to come in. As no exact definition was possible, as in France, of the
word 'gentleman', the freedom of the aristocrat came to be conferred
inadvertently on the merchant and farmer.

118 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

As regards immediate effect, we must remember that Locke wrote
to justify an event which had taken place. His reasoning all leads up
to a description of the constitution of 1688 and a defence of the
changes which had brought it into being. His work was not at first
accepted with much enthusiasm by the Whigs (perhaps because he
proved too much) and it was naturally resented by the Tories as
directly contradicting their doctrine of Divine Right. ^ Locke was
rewarded by two offers of an embassy (which he refused) and by the
offer of a minor government post (which he accepted) in 1696. It was
not until after his death in 1704 that his doctrines began to gain
influence and he had a definite vogue throughout the eighteenth
century.

The two political treatises were not Locke's only works and we
must note at least one other, An Essay concerning Toleration (written
in 1667). In this he asserts that the ruler's functions are confined to
'securing the civil peace and property of his subjects'. He divides
religious beliefs into three categories: those 'purely speculative' such
as 'the belief of the Trinity, purgatory, transubstantiation, antipodes';
those which affect conduct 'in matters of indifferency' such as
marriage, divorce, polygamy, wills, holidays, food and abstinence;
and lastly, those 'moral virtues and vices' which 'concern society and
are also good or bad in their own nature'. As regards the first, Locke
holds that there should be complete freedom. As regards the second,
the government may command or forbid actions which affect 'the
peace, safety and security' of the people. As for the third, Locke
firmly asserts that 'the law-maker hath nothing to do with moral
virtues and vices . . . any otherwise than barely as they are subservient
to the good and preservation of mankind under government'. Locke
expressed these views again in his Letter concerning Toleration (1689),
by which year the principle of toleration had, in England, been more
or less agreed. Locke had incidentally had some part in drawing up
the Constitution of the American State of Carolina in 1669, in which
the freedom of the colonists to worship as they chose was expressly
laid down. This was the beginning of the not inconsiderable influence
his ideas were to have in America. His doctrine of the separation of
powers is embodied even in the United States constitution. As
against that, it might well be argued that Locke's plea for toleration,
and the limits he sets to the functions of the State (both being aspects
of freedom) are his most valuable, if not wholly original, contributions
to political thought. It would be untrue to assert that Locke's dream
of a 'secular' State (without moral purpose) was the reality of
eighteenth century England. But it came more nearly true than it
did anywhere else or indeed than it has in England since. As for his

'John Locke s Political Philosophy. J. W. Gough. Oxford, 1950. pp. 120-1,35.

ARISTOCRACY JUSTIFIED IN THEORY 119

main principle of freedom, that was stoutly maintained and was still
being upheld when the century drew to its close.

It was indeed towards the end of the eighteenth century that the
whole spirit of the English system was summarised by Edmund Burke
(1730-1797). Burke was a pupil, in some measure, of Montesquieu,
having, like everyone else, read and admired his book Esprit des
Lois (1748). This work was based in part on a study of English
institutions and in part on a reading of Locke. He naturally recom-
mended a constitutional monarchy. His approach was, nevertheless,
for the period, extremely scientific, revealing some idea of ethnology
and criminology. His book ran through some twenty-two editions in
eighteen months and had influence on Catherine II, Frederick the
Great and Louis XVI. Burke was among his readers but learnt still
more from Montesquieu's own source of inspiration, English
institutions as they actually existed. Burke lays down as his first
principle that Society is not a machine but an organism — like a tree
or an animal. His second principle is Prudence — deliberation,
sobriety and moderation. His third principle is the necessity for the
long view, backward and forward. He utterly rejects the idea of
majority rule and the will of the people. He argues that our fore-
fathers and descendants, who can have no vote, are also involved and
that a present majority has no right to undo the work of those who
are dead or blight the future of those still to be born. Society is a
family, not a collection of individuals, and the family includes old and
young, ancestors and descendants. His fourth principle is that the
wisdom of our ancestors is not lightly to be set aside, and for this
reason; that their institutions, unlike those proposed by innovators,
are known to be workable. His fifth principle is liberty, but only as
connected with honesty, justice and wisdom. His sixth principle is
Balance. Government, he insists, should display a just balance be-
tween Monarchy, Aristocracy, the Church and the Commons.
Monarchy should be given power but held in check by Aristocracy as
representing stability and permanence. The Commons should rep-
resent a minority of the people, those of adult age, fair education and
suflScient leisure. But the representatives are never merely to reflect
the views of the electorate. Once elected, they should be guided by
their own wisdom and experience.

Burke was, in all this, no theorist. He describes and actively defends
the institutions he knew and respected and the principles generally
approved among his colleagues and friends. He follows Polybius in
praising a constitution in which monarchy, aristocracy and democ-
racy are blended. He follows Cicero in regarding as so blended a
constitution in which aristocracy in fact predominated, and which he
wanted to preserve. He does not, however, praise aristocracy as such.

120 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

He commends rather the principles upon which it is based and the
chief merit for which an aristocratic rule is distinguished. The
principles he values are those of moderation, proportion, foresight
and respect for the past. The merit he finds in an aristocracy is
Freedom.

CHAPTER X

Theocracy

THE Empires of the Ancient World were normally ruled by a king
who was also a god. Given a priesthood to support his divinity,
we have thus an element of theocracy in the oldest kingdoms. But
theocracy, rule by a priest or priests, is only one form of monarchy
or aristocracy and not, in itself, of great political importance. It
would hardly be possible to distinguish between the religious and
political functions of the ancient monarchies; and in the instances
(as among the Jews) where the priests had taken the place of the kings,
then political and religious powers were at least co-extensive. The
people were all of the one religion and they showed no particular
desire to extend its benefits to anyone else. The political interest of
an actively religious rule begins at the point when it is applied to
people who are not of the same religion. Nor is such a rule applied to
others except in the name of a missionary religion; a religion which
enjoins the believer to make converts among the heathen. Although,
therefore, the earliest monarchies were, in some measure, theocratic,
the political interest of theocracy must centre mainly on the mission-
ary and the persecuting religions. And of these the first was Buddhism.
Contemporary with the Jewish prophet Isaiah, contemporary with
Heraclitus, contemporary with Confucius, lived in India Gautama,
known to history as the Buddha. He was a prince who lived round
about 500 B.C., not far from Benares. At the age of twenty-nine he
began to study under Brahman teachers. Having reached a state of
enlightenment (Buddha means the Enlightened) he preached at
Benares, as did the other mendicant monks, his followers. His
doctrine was based on the 'four noble truths'; that life is pain; that
the pain is due to a craving for life; that the solution is to discipline
that craving; and that the secret of that discipline is to escape from
the wheel of life. The way of deliverance includes avoiding the three
vices; ignorance, lust and hatred. Most of this was perfectly con-
sistent with Brahman doctrines. He differed mainly from the
Brahmans, perhaps, in failing to accept their ideas of caste. He was
original, moreover, in giving up fasting and penance and in denying,
in effect, the existence of a personal god or an individual existence
after death. His Nirvana or ultimate good was a cessation, merely, of
life and pain. Doctrines such as these were too subtle and meta-

121

122 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

physical even for his own disciples. They were resisted by the Brah-
mans and appealed only to a few.

After Gautama's death (c. 482-472 B.C.) his followers created a
new religion round his reputation and memory. By 300 B.C. they were
wrangling about doctrine and by that time Buddha (the unbeliever)
had become a god. This new religion made no great progress in
India but, absorbing certain Indian ideas, became a doctrine of
deliverance with Buddha himself in the role of Messiah. In this form
it was spread by active missionaries (not by force) in Burma, Siam,
Malaya, China and Japan. It absorbed many local gods and legends,
becoming, for the simpler devotees, a religion of magic and wonder;
remaining, for others, an austere philosophy. In India Buddhism
reached its peak under the Emperor Asoka, who temporarily con-
verted Ceylon to that faith in 251 B.C. It now forms two main
branches; the one in Ceylon, Burma and Siam; the other in China,
Japan, Java, Sumatra and Tibet. Buddhism brought with it every-
where its own kind of learning and philosophy, its own humanitari-
anism and ethics, its own ritual and art. More than that, the Buddhist
priests were educated men whose knowledge extended to medicine,
textiles, architecture, bell-founding, engraving and sculpture.
Buddhist temples were and are places of great beauty. Buddhist
monasteries were and are centres of learning, charity and refuge.
Buddhism was once almost established as a form of rule in
Japan.

In only one country has a Buddhist government been set up as a
theocracy, and that is Tibet; a country in which ritual and prayer
occupy the energies of quite half its three million inhabitants. Rule
centres on the Dalai Lama, reincarnation of his predecessors and
Vice-Regent for the Buddha. He is assisted by a Council of Ministers
and a Parliament, and all the nobles are made (or were made) to
accept public office. Real power rests, however, in the 400,000 monks
who are or were collected in 5,000 monasteries; and more especially
in the four largest, all near Lhasa. Celibacy on this, scale is hardly
compatible, one would think, with racial survival. As a form of
government, nevertheless. Buddhism can claim (as can the Papacy)
the merit of having proved exceptionally stable.

Although Buddhism is an example, and perhaps the first example,
of a missionary religion, it has not been generally associated with
religious persecution. To this rule, however, there is one big excep-
tion. When the Emperor Asoka, third of the Mauryan dynasty,
succeeded to the throne in about 268 B.C., he proclaimed himself a
Buddhist and Buddhism the state religion. More than that, he used
the machinery of government to disseminate its teachings. For
practical purposes, these teachings, in so far as they affected the

THEOCRACY 123

subject, were summarised in what is called the Second Minor Rock
Edict, which reads as follows: —
Thus saith His Majesty:

Father and mother must be obeyed; similarly, respect for living
creatures must be enforced; truth must be spoken. These are the
virtues of the Law of Piety which must be practised. Similarly, the
teacher must be reverenced by the pupil, and proper courtesy must be
shown to relations.

This is the ancient standard of piety — this leads to length of days, and
according to this men must act.^

As these precepts were acceptable, for the most part, to Asoka's
subjects and as he avowed a general toleration in other respects, this
Edict might seem a harmless injunction to observe what were in fact
established customs. But 'respect for living creatures' meant a partial
enforcement of vegetarianism as from 243 B.C.

. . . Many kinds of animals were absolutely protected from slaughter
in any circumstances; and the slaying of animals commonly used for
food by the flesh-eating population, although not totally prohibited,
was hedged round by severe restrictions. On fifty-six specified days in
the year, killing under any pretext was categorically forbidden; and in
many ways the liberty of the subject was very seriously contracted.
While Asoka lived, these regulations were, no doubt, strictly enforced
by the special officers appointed for the purpose; and it is not unlikely
that deliberate breach of the more important regulations was visited
with the capital penalty, as it was later in the days of Harsha.'^
. . . Sacrifices involving the death of a victim, which are absolutely
indispensable for the correct worship of some of the gods, were
categorically prohibited, at least at the capital, from an early period
in the reign. . . . Men might believe what they liked, but must do as
they were told.^

A respect for life so fanatical as to involve capital punishment
would seem somewhat remote from the philosophical ideas of
Gautama himself. But the transformation of a Founder's ethical
teaching into an elaborate and rigid ritual is the normal way in which
religions develop. In this instance Asoka, who conquered Kalinga
with (it is said) enormous bloodshed, used his powers to the utmost
in support of Buddhism.

. . . But the millenium had not arrived and human nature was not
changed by the affirmation of great spiritual truths. The miracle which
Asoka expected by his proclamations of the Dharma did not come to
pass; and the spiritual insight which he so earnestly desired to give to

' The early History of India from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest. Vincent A.
Smith. 3rd ed. Oxford, 1914. p. 178.
^ Vincent A. Smith, op. cit. p. 177.
^ Ibid. p. 179.

124 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

all his subjects is less evident in early Buddhist records than extrava-
gant faith in the wonder-working powers of the bodily relics of the
Saints who taught the Good Law.^

If Asoka's ideas were remote from those of Gautama, the ideas of
the common folk in India were still more remote from those of Asoka.

The development of the theocracy of Byzantium and Rome can be
traced back not merely to the teachings of Christ but to the organiza-
tion of the Roman Empire. Politically, the story is simple in outline.
The Roman Republic had a military success with which its political
organization was quite unable to cope. The Roman constitution was
basically that of a Greek colony. To use it for governing Italy was to
stretch the system to breaking point. To use it for governing the
known world was impossible. Republican Rome had no executive
body smaller than the Senate, no permanent officials, no specialists
in diplomacy or finance. In so far as the existence of democratic
assemblies meant inviting the unemployed of Rome to advise on the
governance of an Empire, the system was merely absurd. For the
most successful general to make himself ruler was more or less
inevitable. Julius Caesar, the first Commander-in-Chief to assume
political control, annexed Egypt and made it part of the Empire.
His successor, Augustus, (warned by Julius Caesar's fate), moved
cautiously, assuming only Consular powers and the title of 'Princeps'
or first citizen. He avoided anything like royalty. But, whereas
Augustus was only 'Princeps' in Rome and Tmperator' in the
Provinces, he was Pharaoh in Egypt, successor to the Hellenistic
monarchy of the Ptolemies and seated upon the world's most ancient
throne. In Egyptian monuments the Roman Emperors were to appear
with inscriptions reading 'the Everliving, the Beloved of Isis, the
Beloved of Phtha'.^

The tremendous inheritance of Egypt brought the Roman Emperors
not only deity but an example of efficient administration based upon
a strict separation of the military and civil powers. It was not until the
reign of Domitian that the living Emperor was called 'Deus'. It was
Aurelian, however, who proclaimed himself the representative of the
Sun God, to resist whom henceforth would be impious as well as
criminal. The imperial bureaucracy grew up under Claudius (a.d.
41-54) and the Senate lost to it the last of its powers in 271. Before
that, under Hadrian (a.d. 117-138) there had been established the
imperial council of state, the imperial secretariat and the imperial
system of postal communication. What is most significant however,
about his reign is that he spent half his time away from Rome —

' The History of Aryan Rule in India. E. B. Havcll. London, 1918. p. 102.
- The Age of Constantine the Great. Jacob Burckhardt. Trans, by M. Hadas. London,
1949.

THEOCRACY 125

in Spain, Syria, Britain and Africa — being away for five or six years
at a stretch. This shows that the imperial administration could run,
and did run for years, in the Emperor's absence. It was latterly
copied less from Egypt than from the Sassanian administration in
Persia; a ministerial system of the typically Oriental type. The Empire
was governed by what came to be called the Sacred Consistory,
comprising the heads of departments and the Chief Secretary of
State. Beneath it, the Imperial Secretariat included six main
branches. The other departments were those of the Interior,
Finance, Crown Property, the Imperial Household, Justice, War,
Transport and Police. With the Secretariat, the total is nine, the
exact number of the ministries under the Ts'in Dynasty in China. The
ministries are also practically the same but with the one major
diflFerence that the Chinese had no police, the Prefect of the City's
place being taken, with them, by a Minister for Economic Affairs.^

The Roman fusion of Soldier, Administrator and Lawyer had
broken up. And if it is true that the soldier, in becoming more purely
a soldier, became far less of a statesman, it is also true that the
administrator became more efficient in becoming more specialised. It
is even truer that the lawyer became more efficient when relieved of all
but legal duties. The great Roman jurists applied to the Empire the
customs of many different peoples, compared with each other in the
light of Stoic philosophy, expounded with Greek intellectual subtlety
and enforced with Roman strictness. It was the beginning of scientific
jurisprudence, marked by the Perpetual Edict of Hadrian and crowned
long afterwards by the Institutes of Justinian. The result of this new
emphasis on law would eventually be the doctrine that the Emperor
himself was subject to law. This, however, was long after the Emperor
Constantine shifted his capital to the new city he had built on the
Bosphorus, on the site of the older Greek Colony of Byzantium.
The court so transplanted became more openly oriental and the
change in itself foreshadowed the division of the Empire on the death
of Theodosius in 395. The western Empire collapsed in 410 but that
in the East survived and offers us another example of a State influ-
enced and impelled by a missionary religion. This religion was
Christianity.

So far as we know, Christ himself had no political ideas at all
except in so far as he explicity accepted Roman rule and would take
no part in any movement for its overthrow. He preached a doctrine
not wholly unlike that of Buddhism but among a people and in a
setting of a totally different kind. His was the Semitic world of the
Middle East,

• See Roman Political Institutions. L. P. Homo. p. 269. Legacv of the Ancient World.
W. G. de Burgh. London, 1947. p. 25.3 and Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. XI. p. 432.

126 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Semites had no half tones in their register of vision. They were a
people of primary colours, or rather of black and white, who saw the
world always in contrast . . . their thoughts were at ease only in
extremes. They inhabited superlatives by choice . . . their convictions
were by instinct, their activities intuitional. Their largest manufacture
was of creeds; almost they were monopolists of revealed religions.
Three of these efforts . . . endured. These were Semitic successes.
Their failures they kept to themselves. The fringes of the desert were
strewn with broken faiths. The common base of all the Semitic
creeds, winners or losers, was the ever-present idea of world worth-
lessness. . . . The Semites hovered between lust and self-denial. They
were incorrigible children of the idea, feckless and colour blind, to
whom body and spirit were for ever and inevitably opposed.^

If the ideas of Christ himself were, like those of Gautama, ethical
and abstract, his followers had much the same background as earlier
believers in Judaism and later believers in Islam. Of the revealed
religions the three of most permanent political effect came from the
fringes of the same desert and were doomed to mutual hostility not
because they are so different but because they are so alike. Christ's
followers, like Gautama's, interpreted his teachings in the light of
their own preconceived ideas. They had the mental outlook, when
outside Palestine, of an unpopular minority which founded its unity on
a book. From that sacred scripture they derived an idea of kingship
but with divine sanction conferred by anointment at the hands of a
prophet. They were God's Chosen People and, convinced that the
divine plan would include their redemption and satisfy their hatred.
Beneath a veneer of Hellenistic culture, they had all the Semitic
intolerance. But the early Christians were also influenced by the
destruction of Jerusalem, temple and all, in a.d. 70, which
strengthened in them that hatred of the Romans which is expressed in
Revelation. They were later influenced by intermittent persecution,
both by the Jews and by the Romans; the former regarding them as
deviationists and the latter as abstainers from formal Emperor-
worship.

The essentials of Christian teaching, from the political point of
view, are to be found in the doctrines concerning the fatherhood of
God and the future life. A belief that God is father of all makes all
human beings brothers and sisters and therefore (more or less) equal
in value at least to God. Logically pursued, the doctrine abolishes all
inherited rank or inherited slavery. Emphasis on the future life was
not wholly new in itself but was new at least to many Christian
converts. It involves the belief that the present life is merely a training
(and elimination) of candidates for heaven. By Christian teaching the
poorest and worst-treated have quite possibly the best chance of

' The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. T. E. Lawrence. London, 1937. pp. 40-42.

THEOCRACY 127

redemption, so that present inequalities may be made good hereafter.
One might add that the Christian ethical teaching, with its insistence
upon a high moral standard in honesty, kindness, abstinence and self-
sacrifice, might mean that a Christian State (were one established)
would have a moral purpose going far beyond the functions of any
previous State. In the meanwhile, there was nothing in Christianity to
justify armed revolt against even a pagan ruler; still less against a
ruler even nominally a Christian. It was, however, found possible to
justify resistance to heresy; to doctrines, that is to say, which would
imperil the souls of those induced to believe in them. In Christianity
the priesthood had been important from the beginning, having special
power to convey the forgiveness of sins. As Christ had never married
and as his closest followers had followed his example in this, all
sexual relationships were regarded as more or less sinful and a con-
cession, at best, to human weakness. So the Church's officers, at
least, had to be celibate and there was, from the beginning, a definite
place in the Church for those who forsook all human relationships
and possessions, devoting themselves to contemplation and prayer.
A final Christian characteristic was the desire to convert others for
their own good and to save them from destruction or eternal torment.
Although wholly benevolent in origin, this could lead in the end to
persecution. It was something hitherto almost unknown.

Jewish opposition led the Christians to seek for converts outside
their own racial group, and their missionary efforts had a great
measure of success. Romans of the more conservative type attributed
the decline of their Empire to subversive Christian propaganda. It
was in fact the other way about. In an age of growing uncertainty and
confusion people turned to a revealed religion, showing a new
interest in the next world as they came to expect less in this. Nor was
Christianity the only religion to benefit from this growing insecurity.
No other group, however, held such a typically Indian belief with
such Arab intensity. Christians were peculiarly non-political believing
as they did in an early end of the world with the second coming of
Christ; an expectation which lingered, in fact, until a.d. 1001. In the
meanwhile, however, their world, in the west, did end. The sack of
Rome by Alaric in 410 had a stunning effect upon all to whom the
Empire had seemed eternal. The catastrophe — repeated in 455 — was
almost unthinkable. The western Empire crumbled and the Bishop of
Rome, remaining at his post after the collapse, found himself the heir
to its prestige and to some indeed of its political power and territory.
Rome was to be the centre, henceforth, of a new theocracy which
still exists. We have seen already (pp. 75-76) some of the arguments used
to maintain its supremacy against any revival of the secular power.
In the Eastern Empire, centred on Constantinople, the story was

128 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

entirely different. Rome here survived but in an orientalised form.
Gibbon describes with eloquence how oriental, how Persian, it had in
fact become.

The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power,
had left to the vanity of the east the forms and ceremonies of osten-
tatious greatness. But when they lost even the semblance of those
virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity
of Roman manners was insensibly corrupted by the stately affectation
of the courts of Asia. The distinctions of personal merit and influence,
so conspicuous in a republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy,
were abolished by the despotism of the emperors, who substituted in
their room a severe subordination of rank and office, from the titled
slaves who were seated on the steps of the throne to the meanest
instruments of arbitrary power. The multitude of abject dependants
was interested in the support of the actual government, from the dread
of a revolution, which might at once confound their hopes, and inter-
cept the reward of their services. In this divine hierarchy (for such it is
frequently styled), every rank was marked with the most scrupulous
exactness, and its dignity was displayed in a variety of trifling and
solemn ceremonies, which it was a study to learn, and a sacrilege to
neglect. The purity of the Latin language was debased, by adopting,
in the intercourse of pride and flattery, a profusion of epithets, which
Tully would have scarcely understood, and which Augustus would
have rejected with indignation. The principal officers of the empire
were saluted, even by the sovereign himself, by the deceitful titles of
your Sincerity, your Gravity, your Excellency, your Eminency, your
sublime and wonderful Magnitude, your illustrious and magnificent
Highness.^

However nauseating this ceremony might be to a good republican,
the Byzantine Empire had at least the merit of success. And there can
be no doubt that the stability of the Eastern Empire was largely due
to its alliance with Christianity. It was Constantine who recognised
in this widespread religion a stabilising force which he could use for
political ends. He used Christianity even before he professed it.^ It
was he who, at the Council of Nicaea, managed, as chairman, to
induce the bishops to agree on the Nicene Creed. At this period
Constantine retained all the prestige of the God-Emperor. He was
approached with a ritual of prostration and it was a privilege to
approach him at all.^ It was only on his deathbed in 337 that Con-
stantine was actually baptised. And his successors. Christian in their
turn, lost little of his sanctified authority.

' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Edward Gibbon. London,
1888. Vol. II. pp. 197-9.

■ Western Political Thought. John Bowie. London, 1947. p. 125. See also Byzantine
Civilisation. Steven Runciman. London, 1933. p. 79.

' Byzantium, an Introduction to East Roman Civilization. Norman H. Baynes and H.
Baynes and H. St. L. B. Moss (editors). Oxford, 1948.

THEOCRACY 129

It might be thought that the Eastern Empire presented, at this
period, a typical monarchy of the type familiar in Egypt, Persia or
China. But there was this significant difference that Christianity is a
missionary religion and that Byzantine religion, as now established,
was intolerant in a new way. The tradition of Roman Law was
maintained to a large extent but the aim of government was no longer
secular. The State was responsible for morals, conduct, teaching and
belief. The administration in later Byzantium was paternal in the
extreme and affected daily life to a degree hardly equalled or exceeded
until the present day. We hear of the tenth century Prefect of Con-
stantinople fixing prices, wages and hours and licensing the opening
of new shops. Migration and travel was discouraged, and travellers
had to have passports. Work had to be found for the unemployed.
The sabbath had to be duly observed and the good citizen had to be
orthodox. As already discovered in Buddhist India of Asoka's time,
the government which adopts or absorbs the doctrines of a missionary
religion must assume functions far in excess of those ordinarily
assumed. The essence of religious persecution lies in government
swayed by religious beliefs which not all those governed may share.
Under a theocracy religious persecution is all but inevitable.

Like Christianity, Islam derives from the Semitic peoples of the
desert. Like Christianity again, it has been modified by the peoples
and civilisations which its adherents have conquered or absorbed. It
sprang up among the nomad tribes of Arabia, living midway between
a declining Roman Empire and a dechning empire of Persia. These
desert people have made periodic invasions of the Fertile Crescent,
as it has been called, which lies temptingly to the northward of their
poor, barren land. The rise of Islam represents just such another
invasion but informed with a different purpose. Until the time of
Muhammad, who was born about a.d. 570, each Arab tribe had
possessed its own tribal god (the Jews' Jahweh was one of them) with
a worship involving sacrifice, prayer, omens, images and 'Jinns' or
demons. Mecca was a place of pilgrimage because of its 'caaba' or
black stone and 'Allah' or 'Lord' was the title any Arab would give
to any god.^ Being influenced by more civilised peoples near them, the
Arabs knew something of Judaism and Christianity.

Muhammad was born at Mecca, married at the age of 25 and
began, some years later, to see visions and hear voices. An angel
appeared to him when he was aged forty and again two or three years
later. Then he had repeated revelations and some people thought him
mad. He preached the need for submission (Islam) to the one god
(Allah), together with prayer, abstinence and alms-giving. Persecuted
for his views, he fled with his followers to Medina in 622 (the Hegira)

' The Arabs in History. Bernard Lewis. London, 1950. Chap. 1.

130 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

and there became all-powerful. He captured Mecca in a.d. 630 and
made it the capital of Islam. Soon afterwards, in 632, he died, leaving
the Koran for his followers' guidance. As the Western Roman Empire
had virtually ceased to exist in 476, and as Heraclius defeated the
Persians at Nineveh in 627, there was a political vacuum to the east
and west of Arabia. On the other hand, Byzantium remained strong.
The Arab invasion split, as it were, on the rock of Constantinople and
flowed eastwards and westwards, its furthest tide reaching China in
one direction and France in the other. The Arabs could have achieved
nothing on this scale without a powerful creed. For Muhammad,
remember, with his personality and his gifts as a ruler, was dead
before this great movement had even begun. It was his ideas that
went so far and so fast, sometimes even outstripping his followers
themselves, well mounted as they were.

Islam is summarised in one basic profession of faith. There is no
God but Allah and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah'. There is no
room here for tolerance. The followers of the prophet belonged to a
brotherhood of the faithful, superseding all blood-ties. They were to
be distinguished by the pious observances of prayer (facing Mecca),
by attendance at the Mosque, by keeping Friday as the 'Sabbath', by
complete abstinence from wine, by fasting during Ramadan and by
the pilgrimage to Mecca. They were allowed to be polygamous, with
up to four wives at a time — the women to go veiled. Followers of the
prophet were also bound to fight the infidel and make Islam prevail
everywhere, the fallen in this war being sure of paradise and the non-
combatants bound at least to help by contributing towards the cost
of the war. Muslims revealed, in particular, a growing hostility against
Judaism and Christianity; the former because the Jews had been
opponents of the prophet, the latter because the doctrine of the
Trinity was not strictly monotheistic.

Of the people of Islam it has been said: —

This community is diflFerent from any other: it is the chosen, the
holy people, to whom is entrusted the furtherance of good and the
repression of evil; it is the only seat of justice and faith upon earth,
the sole witness for God among the nations, just as the Prophet had
been God's witness among the Arabs. ^

The doctrine, therefore, of human equality has no support from the
orthodox Muslim. As against that, Muslims claim to be politically
equal among themselves.

As to the Muslim theory of government, it is embodied in two verses
of the Quran 'Consult with your companions in conduct of affairs'
(3 ; 159) 'The way of the Companions of the Prophet to govern

' The Legacy of Islam. Ed. by Sir Thomas Arnold. Oxford, 1931. p. 284.

THEOCRACY 131

their affairs is by counsel' (42 : 38). These verses lay down for all
time the guiding principle of government. . . .

As to the political ideal of Islam, one could quote instances from
Islamic history to show the absolute equality of all men in Islam, the
head of the State, the Caliph, not excepted. This conception of justice
which differentiates between the subject and the ruler is repugnant to
the Muslim. To the Quran both the servant and the master, the slave
and the king, have equal legal status. . . .^

Failing more explicit guidance from the Koran, the Muslim must
turn for political advice to Islamic history and tradition. This would
be more helpful if the Arabs had recorded their history more
promptly.- Traditions they have, nevertheless, in plenty, and these
emphasise the duty of obedience to the ruler.

'The Apostle of God said: after me will come rulers; render them
your obedience ... if they are righteous and rule you well, they shall
have their reward; but if they do evil and rule you ill, then punishment
will fall upon them and you will be quit of it. . . .'^

We have, therefore, in Islam, two somewhat conflicting ideas; the
Arab concept of equality in brotherhood and an added idea of
obedience to a ruler; and indeed to any ruler. Equality was difficult to
sustain, in any case, because Muhammad left a widow, daughters and
uncles, all of whom were bound to be privileged; and he also left
friends who were in the best position to know what he thought or
what, in given circumstances, he might have done. As for the auth-
ority of the ruler, that was bound to grow among an aggressive people,
faced with problems of war, conquest, empire and administration.
And Muhammad had left them, in lieu of advice, his own example;
and his powers seem to have been pretty absolute. What he failed to
leave was an appointed successor, an heir, or any directions as to how
his successor should be appointed; if indeed there was to be a
successor at all.

When Muhammad died there were four parties of Muslims: the
Early Believers (who had taken part in the Hegira); the Believers of
Medina (who had invited him there); the converts of Mecca (con-
verted by force after the capture), headed by the aristocratic family of
the Umayyad; and a party of mixed origin which expected God to
appoint the Prophet's successor.* After much disagreement, Abu
Bakr (the Prophet's father-in-law) was elected, to be followed by

' Muhaminad 'A Mercv to all the Nations'. Al. Haji Qassim Ali Jairazbhoy. London
1934. p. 239.

' The Law of War and Peace in Islam. A Study in Muslim International Law. Majid
Khadduri. London, 1940.

" The Caliphate. Sir Thomas W. Arnold. Oxford, 1924. pp. 48-50.

' Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory. Duncan
B. Macdonald. London, 1903. (Chapters I and 11).

132 THE K VOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Umar in 634. Both these belonged to the party of the Early Believers,
but when Umar died in 644, the Umayya clan secured the election of
Uthman (son-in-law of the Prophet), who was assassinated in 655 by a
son of Abu Bakr. The fourth or legitimist party then gained the
choice of Ali, another son-in-law of the Prophet. He was supplanted
by the Umayyads, who ruled, more or less, until 750; one branch,
indeed, in Spain, surviving until 929 or later. In Arabia itself the
Khalifate virtually ended with the Mongol conquest of 656 when the
Abbasids fell. The Ottoman Sultans claimed to be Khalifa as from
1538 but with little real authority over any other Muslim rulers.
Orthodoxy has been upheld not so much by the Sultans as by the
Sharif families of Mecca.

Muslim orthodoxy is largely a matter of Muslim law. Muhammad
had ruled Medina and, later, Mecca, acting as judge, using local
customary law when he thought good, using his own judgment (or
revelation) when that seemed to him better. In place, therefore, of a
legal code, he left his decisions in the accidental sequence of their
delivery. Decisions made to settle squabbles among the Medina
townsfolk are found to cover subjects as various as prayer, ritual
ablution, poor-rates, fasting, pilgrimage, business transactions,
inheritance, marriage, divorce, intoxicants, the holy war, hunting,
racing, vows and slavery. The result is an elaborate but unsystematic
system of conduct.

How, indeed, can we meet a legal code which knows no destinction
of personal or public, of civil or criminal law; which prescribes and
describes the use of the toothpick and decides when a wedding
invitation may be declined, which enters into the minutest and most
unsavoury details of family life and lays down rules of religious retreat !
Is it by some subtle connection of thought that the chapter on oaths
and vows follows immediately that on horse-racing, and a section on
the building line on a street is inserted in a chapter on bankruptcy and
composition? One thing, at least, is abundantly clear. Muslim law, in
the most absolute sense, fits the old definition, and is the science of all
things, human and divine. ... It takes all duty for its portion and
defines all action in terms of duty. Nothing can escape the narrow
meshes of its net. One of the greatest legists of Islam never ate a
watermelon because he could not find that the usage of the Prophet
had laid down and sanctioned a canonical method of doing so.^

The Caliphate in its original form, provided with the prophet's
detailed guidance, was no ordinary monarchy or priesthood. It
might, in different circumstances, have become a theocracy com-
parable to that of Rome. It did not, however, last long enough for
that.

' The Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory.
D. B. Macdonald. London, 1903. pp. 66-67 and Appendix I, pp. 351-357.

THEOCRACY 133

In point of fact, the caliphate as it is fondly imagined by jurists
never had a real existence . . . hardly had the first Muslim generation
died away when the practical needs of a great polity, and the unruly
temper of the Arabs, combined to transform the caliphate first into a
personal rule under the Umayyads; then, under the Abbasids, into a
monarchy on the Persian pattern, whose apparent orthodoxy but ill-
concealed the despotism, the violence, and the administrative mis-
management which were pushing the empire to its ruin.^

But if the Muslim Empire was short-lived it survived at least long
enough to demonstrate its religious intolerance in Persia, Syria,
Egypt and Spain. And it differed from Christian intolerance in the
one important respect, that conversion was not its object. In con-
quered territories the unbelievers were left in possession of their
lands but specially taxed. They were destined for hell-fire as infidels
but extensive conversion to the true faith would have been financially
undesirable. The Muslim imposed social and legal disabilities and then
left the subject population to its own devices." It would be true,
therefore, to say that while the Arab Muslims imposed a rigid code
of conduct on themselves, they rarely attempted to enforce the same
rules on others. On the other hand, their avowed policy of conquest,
the Holy War, brought them into continual conflict with Christians
who were, if anything, less tolerant than they. After the fall of the
Caliphate, the Arabs added little that was new to the practice or
theory of politics. The Muslim ruler was much like any other oriental
king but with a special responsibility towards his co-religionists and
a sense of equality with them for purposes of religion. This ideal is
well expressed in a letter from the Caliph Omar to the Governor of
Basra : —

. . . Strike terror into wrongdoers and make heaps of mutilated limbs
out of them. Visit the sick among Moslems, attend their funerals, open
your gate to them and give heed in person to their affairs, for you are
but a man amongst them except that God has allotted you the heaviest
burden.^

For the rest, the functions of a Muslim ruler have been defined as
judgment, taxation, the Friday worship and the Holy War. He is
accorded no legislative power, God being the only law-giver and his
laws already known. He does not normally even interpret the law,
that being the work of experts in jurisprudence. His duties were
simple and so remained as long as government was centred in Arabia.

In conquered territories the Muslim ruler usually inherited the more

' The Legacy of Islam. Ed. by Sir Thomas Arnold. Oxford, 1931. p. 301.
- The Arabs in History. Ccrnard Lewis. London, 1950. p. 140.

^ An Introduction to the Sociology of Islam. R. Levy. 2 vols. London, n.d. Vol. L
p. 284.

134 THH EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

complex administration of a more settled people. While the arabs
retained the position of an alien aristocracy, ruling in the name of
God and his prophet, they found themselves compelled to employ
advisers, financial experts, architects, engineers, physicians, teachers
and artists. And these tended more and more to be Christians,
Persians and Jews. The administration soon altered radically in
character, much to the resentment of fanatical Muslims.' At Baghdad,
Damascus, in Tunis and Andalusia, Muslim rule became less and less
distinguishable from that of any oriental monarchy. Perhaps the
most distinctive feature was the way in which men of wealth were
encouraged to gain religious merit by founding mosques and hospitals,
building bridges and rest-houses (for pilgrims) and constructing
reservoirs and aqueducts.- The greatest arab achievements were
intellectual and resulted from combining the ideas of the various
peoples they had conquered. But this arab bridging of the gap between
East and West, vitally important as it was in matters of pure science,'^
was perhaps least fruitful in political development.

The most interesting example of a Muslim State being super-
imposed upon a people with a different religion is that of Mogul
India. Historically, this happens quite late, for the Mogul Empire in
India was not founded by Babar until 1505 nor completed until the
time of Akbar (1556-1605). These Moguls were of Mongol descent
but came more immediately from Turkestan. They were Muslims and
brought a Muslim army into the Delhi kingdom of Hindostan; until
then divided between five Muslim and two Hindu rulers.'* It is inter-
esting to see how Muslim rule developed, more especially in the reign
of Akbar and Aurangzib.

The duties of a Muslim king in an Islamic state . . . require him to rule
in accordance with the Quranic law ... it may be noted that Islamic
law divides the subjects under a Muslim king into two sections,
believers and non-believers, and imposes a duty upon the king to see
that believers live as true Muslims, and non-believers remain in the
position allotted to them as Zimonis, a position which denies them
equal status with Muslim subjects, but guarantees security of life and
property and the continuance of their religion and religious practices
under certain defined conditions.

Thus a Muslim king, besides performing the ordinary duties con-
nected with his office, has also to uphold the dignity of his religion
through defined channels and to rule according to Islamic law.

The impossibility of ruling India on these lines was felt as early as
the thirteenth century. . . .^

• A Short History of the Middle East. G. E. Kirk. London, 1948. p. 24.
- Muslim Institutions. Maurice Gaudefroy-Dcmombyncs. London, 1950. p. 114.
'■' Muhani/nad '/I Merer to all Nations'. Al-Haji Qassim All Jairazbiiov. London,
1934. p. 222.

' The Agrarian System of Moslem India. W. H. Moreland. Cambridge, 1929. p. 21.
■' The Central Structure of the Mughal Etnpire. Ibn Hasan. Oxford, 1936. p. 306.

THEOCRACY 135

The impossibility appears from what Jalal-ud-din is said to have
remarked to his chief adviser. 'Every day Hindus, who are the
deadliest enemies of Islam, pass by my palace beating drums and
trumpets and go out to the Jamna and practise idolatry openly . . .
and we call ourselves Muslims. . . ."^ This is a confession of failure.
But the fact is that a King by Hindu ideas was more sacred and more
important than Muslim law would quite allow him to be. A Hindu
king was less restrained by law. The Hindus had no theory of
equality before God. So that the process by which a Muslim monarchy
succumbed to the prevailing Hindu atmosphere of India had its
consolations for the monarch himself.

Something of this process may appear from the style of address
used respectively at the Courts of Babur and Humayan. Babur was
officially described as:

. . . King of the four quarters, and of the seven heavens; celestial
sovereign; diadem of the sublime throne; great of genius and greatness-
conferring; fortune-increaser; of excellent horoscope; heaven in
comprehensiveness; earth in stability; lionhearted; clime-capturer;
lofty in splendour; of active brain; searcher after knowledge; rank-
breaking lion rampant; exalter of dominion; ocean-hearted; of illust-
rious origin; a saintly sovereign; enthroned in the kingdom of reality
and spirituality.^

This cold and laconic description would not suffice for Humayan,
who was:

. . . Theatre of great gifts; source of lofty inspirations; exalter of the
throne of the Khilifat of greatness; planter of the standard of sublime
rule; Kingdom-bestowing conqueror of Countries; Auspicious sitter
upon the throne; founder of the Canons of justice and equity; arranger
of the demonstrations of greatness and sovereignty; spring of the
fountains of glory and beneficence; water-gate for the rivers of learn-
ing; brimming rain-cloud of choiceness and purity; billowy sea of
liberality and loyalty; choosing the right, recognising the truth; sole
foundation of many laws; both a King of dervish race and a dervish
with a King's title; parterre-adorning arranging of realm and religion;
garland-twiner of spiritual and temporal blossoms; throne of the sphere
of eternal mysteries; alidad of the astrolabe of theory and practice;
in austerities of asceticism and spiritual transports, a Grecian Plato; in
executive energy and the paths of energy, a second Alexander; pearl
of the seven oceans and glory of the four elements, ascension-point of
suns and dawn of Jupiter; phoenix (huma) towering to the heights of
heaven.'^

This not unfavourable prospectus, whether accurate or not in all

' Ibid. p. 307.

'^ Tiie Alibarnama of Abii-!-Foal. Trans, by H. Beveridge. Vol. I.

" The Commercial Policy of tlie Moguls. D. Pant. Bombay, 1930. p. 30.

136 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

particulars — and some parts of it seem at least open to argument — is
not especially Muslim. Indeed, the words 'sole foundation of many
laws' are in virtual contradiction of Islamic doctrine. On the other
hand, these titles of respect (verging perhaps on flattery) suggest how
completely the Muslim practice had been assimilated by the Hindu
tradition. It involved as exacting a routine for Jahangir as it had for
Chandragupta. Akbar worked even more continually and Aurangzeb,
if he worked less, prayed more; so that he slept, it is said, only three
hours in the twenty-four. The Moghul system of government was
equally in accordance with Hindu precedent, and the list of Ministers
originally much the same. But the effect of adding a Muslim intoler-
ance to a Hindu administration was to add considerably to the
government's tendency to interfere in every aspect of life. This is
indicated by Akbar's creation of new departments of agriculture,
pensions, price-control, inheritance, minerals and forests.^ Humayan
is said to have grouped the departments into four categories, dealing
respectively with Fire, Air, Water and Earth; logically satisfying,
perhaps, as a plan and yet not without an element of mystery, too."
Ministers were paid either by the Treasury or by the allocation of
revenue from a certain area, but any fortune they accumulated
reverted when they died to the Emperor.^ Revenue derived mainly
from land, the one-sixth of the produce collected under Hindu rule
rising to between a third and a half in Muslim India. There were, in
addition, customs duties, inheritance taxes, a poll-tax claimed from
Christians and Jews, a tax on salt and state monopolies established
in saltpetre, indigo and lead. State interference extended to religion
and Akbar made a spirited but unsuccessful attempt to unite Islam
and Hinduism in a new state religion with himself (an agnostic) as
Pope.

While the Moghuls thus tried to unify Hindustan and abolish
Muslim dominance, their rule was nevertheless far from secular.^
Their administration was penetrated with the idea that the State must
promote morality and punish irreligion and vice. Thus, the 'kotwal'
of the Moghul period fairly carried out the duties of the Nagaraka or
Town Prefect of Mauryan days.

For the Kotwal kept a register of houses and roads; divided the
town into quarters, and placed an assistant in direct charge of each
quarter, who had to report daily arrivals and departures; he kept a
small army of spies or detectives ... he enforced a curfew-order; kept
an eye on the currency ; fixed local prices and examined dealers' weights
and measures; kept inventories of the property of persons dying

' CamhriJi;e History of India. Vol. IV. Mughul Period. Cambridge 1937. p. 133.
' The Commercial Policy of /he Moi^iils. D. Pant. Bombay, 1930. p. 30.
• Mm^ha! Rule in India.' S. M. Edwards and H. L. O. Garrett. Oxford. 1930.
' A History of the Great Moghuls. (1605-1739) Pringie Kennedy. Caiculla, 1911.

THEOCRACY 137

intestate; set apart wells and ferries for the use of women; stopped
women riding on horseback; prevented cattle slaughter; kept a check
on slavery; expelled religious enthusiasts, calendars, and dishonest
tradesmen, from the urban area; allotted separate quarters to butchers,
sweepers and hunters; set apart land for burial-grounds; and arranged
for the illumination of the town on the occasion of festivals and
holidays. This by no means exhausts the tale of the kotwal's duties.
He was expected to know everything about everybody; to visit condign
punishment upon any one who demeaned himself by consorting and
drinking with a public executioner; to prevent sati, if the woman was
disinclined to sacrifice herself; to put a stop to circumcision before the
age of twelve; to prevent the slaughter of oxen, buffaloes, horses and
camels; and during the reign of Akbar, to enforce also the observance
of the Ila/ii calendar and of the special festivals and ritual prescribed
by the Emperor.'^

To quote another source:

The Kotwal must appoint one or more brokers, to transact the
various kinds of commercial business; and, after taking security from
them must station such in the market place that they may afford
information regarding such things as are bought and sold. He must
also make it a rule that every person buying or selling, without the
advice of the above-mentioned brokers, will be deemed in fault; that
both the name of the buyer and seller must be written in the register
of daily transactions."

While we may feel a certain sympathy for the kotwal, whose leisure
would seem to have been strictly limited, we must also note the wide
variety of actions (not obviously harmful in themselves) which might
involve punishment. These range from using the wrong calendar to
setting a woman on horseback; from drinking with the hangman to
selling a chicken without the advice of the official broker. Nor did
government interference end there, for a characteristic of Moghul
policy was the discouragement of the use of intoxicants. The maker,
the seller, and the drinker of wine could all be punished. For excess in
drinking the penalties were still more severe, even under Akbar (who
drank wine himself). During his reign, wine was obtainable only on
medical advice and from an official wine shop. 'Persons who wished
to purchase wine, as a remedy for sickness, could do so by having
their name, and that of their father and grandfather, written down by
the clerk'. ^ The ways of officialdom do not change, it seems.

If Akbar was half-hearted as a moralist, Aurangzib (1658-1681)
more than made up for it."* A strict Muslim, he appointed a censor

' Mughal Rule in India, op cit. pp. 185-186.

' The Commercial Policy of the Moguls. D. Pant. Bombay, 1930. p. 44.

^ Ibid. p. 45.

' He even ordered the destruction of Hindu schools and temples, while continuing
to encourage, as Akbar had done, the Muslim schools devoted to the study of Urdu
and Persian.

138 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

(Muhtasib) in every large city 'to enforce the prophet's laws and put
down forbidden practices, such as drinicing, gambUng and the ilhcit
commerce of the sexes'.^ The same officer was to punish heresy,
blasphemy, omission of the five daily prayers and failure to observe
Ramayan. Later in life Aurangzib became still more puritanical and
forbade music at court.

But this attempt to elevate mankind by one stroke of the official pen
failed, as Akbar's social reforms had failed before. Aurangzib's
government made itself ridiculous by violently enforcing for a time,
then relaxing, and finally abandoning a code of puritanical morals
opposed to the feelings of the entire population, without first trying to
educate them to a higher level of thought. As Manucci observed,
there were few who did not drink secretly, and even the ministers and
qazis loved to get drunk at home. Gambling continued to be practised
in his camp, and his order to all the courtesans and dancing girls to
marry or leave the realm remained a dead letter.-

On this last point Akbar had been less drastic, contenting himself
with the formation of a prostitutes' quarter outside each town, with
a superviser and clerk appointed 'to register the names of those who
resorted to them. No one could take a dancing girl to his house
without permission'.-' These rules, while indicating disapproval, also
suggest a desire to share in the profits. As Aurangzib pointed out,
'Kingship means the protector of the realm and the guardianship of
the people ... a king is merely God's elected custodian and the trustee
of His money for the benefit of the subjects'.'

As an early experiment in Socialism, Moghul India was less com-
plete than the Chinese experiment of a.d. 9 to 25. Akbar could hardly
rival Wang Mang with his nationalisation of land, timber, iron and
copper. On the other hand, the Moghuls fully demonstrated just how
over-centralised a State could become. What was the result? It was
ruin. It was ruin, moreover, of a peculiar kind.

... in the India of our period the working of the administration was,
next to the rainfall, the most important factor in the economic life of
the country. It acted directly on the distribution of the national in-
come to an extent which is now difficult to realise, for in practice the
various governments disposed of somewhere about one half of the
entire gross produce of the land, and they disposed of it in such a way
that the producers were left with a bare subsistence or very little more,
while the energies of the unproductive classes were spent in the struggle
to secure the largest possible share. The reaction on production was
inevitably unfavourable; producers were deprived of the natural

' The Cnmhri(/i;e History of liulia. Vol. IV. p. 230.

- Ihicl. p. 230. '

■' The Commercial Policy of the iVfoi^hitls. D. Pant. pp. 45-46.

THEOCRACY 139

incentive to energy, because they could not hope to retain any material
proportion of an increase in their income; men of ability or talent were
discouraged from producing ... it was better to be a peon than a
peasant; and critics who express surprise at the tendency of Indian
brains and energy to seek employment in the service of the State will
find ample explanation in the history of the centuries during which no
other career was possible.^

What W. H. Moreland and his readers may have found difficult to
visualise in 1923, we are now perhaps in a better position to focus. It
needs nowadays no such effort of imagination to picture a State in
which productive and creative energy has been brought to a standstill
by excess of administration. It is even easier for us to foresee the
national bankruptcy which is likely to result. The process, in Moghul
India, was relatively swift. By the reign of Aurangzib a policy of over-
taxation had produced a scarcity of peasants and a tendency for land
to go out of cultivation. Francois Bernier, who spent eight years as
physician at the Moghul Court, remarked upon this, pointing out
that

. . . many of the peasantry, driven to despair by so execrable a tyranny,
abandon the country, and seek a more tolerable mode of existence,
either in the towns or camps; as bearers of burdens, carriers of water,
or servants to horsemen. Sometimes they fly to the territories of a
Raja, because there they find less oppression. . . .-

In fact, by the reign of Aurangzib, government was defeating its
own end. All interest was concentrated upon the division of the annual
produce and no attention was paid to any plan for increasing it. The
system was bound to collapse, and collapse, in effect, it did. But the
interest, for our present purpose, of this experiment is not in its
economic aspect but in the moral purpose which impels a theocracy
into thus attempting to control every human activity from the cradle
to the grave.

Theocracy has not, of course, been confined to Oriental kingdoms.
Contemporary with the Moghuls, for instance, lived John Calvin,
who inspired the setting up of a theocratic Republic at Geneva.
Calvin's doctrines centre upon predestination. He taught

.... that God, by his eternal and immutable Counsel, determined
once and for all those whom it was his pleasure to admit to salvation,
and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to
destruction: we maintain that this counsel, as regards his Elect, is
founded on his free mercy, without any respect of human merit. While
those whom he dooms to destruction are excluded from access to life

' From Akbar to Aurangzib, a stitdv in Indian Economic Historv. W. H. Moreland.
London, 1923. p. 233.

- The Agrarian System of Moslem India. W. H. Moreland. Cambridge, 1929. p. 147.

140 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

by a just and blameless but at the same time incomprehensible decree.
In regard to his Elect, we regard calling as the evidence of election and
Justification as another symbol of its manifestation.'

Geneva was ruled by an oligarchy of merchants and it was these
that Calvin converted, making them all eager to appear (and mani-
festly) as of the Elect. The result was an identification of the objects of
Church and State. The magistrates were to see that God was obeyed,
backsliders punished and heretics killed. What this Calvinist discipline
meant is apparent from the Registers of the Genevan Council from
1545 to 1547.

A man who swore by the 'body and blood of Christ' was condemned
to sit in the public square in the stocks, and to be fined.

Another, hearing an ass bray, and saying jestingly, 'II chante un
beau psaume', was sentenced to temporary banishment from the
city. . . .

... A young girl, in Church, singing the words of a song to the tune of
the psalm, was ordered to be whipt by her parents.

Drunkennessanddebauchery were visited with more severe penalties;
adultery more than once with death. Prostitutes who ventured back
to Geneva were mercilessly thrown into the Rhone. Cards were
altogether prohibited. Rope-dancers and conjurers were forbidden to
exhibit. . . .-

But while Calvin and Aurangzib had thus so much in common, the
former's rule was far the more effective as extending over only a
small area. For a time at least, Geneva was very godly indeed. But it
was no part of Calvinist doctrine to make men forswear their business
and seek a life of contemplation. They were to continue their normal
work, showing their membership of the Elect by their conduct. This
would mean strict morality, sobriety, plain dress and no ritual. But
how could they show that God approved of them? One way was by
worldly success, known as 'making good'. So that morality soon came
to include the virtues likely to promote success: hard work, abstin-
ence, punctuality, exact accounts, tidiness and a strict control over
the young and the poor. Ensuring that employees did their work had
the double merit of making money and preventing the idleness which
would lead to mischief. Here was the ideal religion for merchants and
industrialists, tending to favour wealth but discourage luxury. A
typical hatred of the Calvinist was for the theatre, as combining
colour, music, beauty, worldliness, frivolity, sex, sin, waste of money
and waste of time. The calvinist wanted a republic ruled by people
like himself, necessarily a small minority. Mankind being mostly

' Institutes. John Calvin. Bk. Ill, XXI, 5-7. See Western Political Thought. John
Bowie. London, 1947. pp. 277-283.

- The Political Consequences of the Reformation. R. H. Murray. London, 1926. p. 9L

THEOCRACY 141

damned 'except in so far as Grace rescues some, not many, who would
otherwise perish', the Elect were of necessity few. if they were power-
less, Calvin told them to be patient and accept the trial of their faith;
but later Calvinists, like Knox and Buchanan, were more inclined to
preach resistance to Catholic tyranny. When weak, they talked of
Natural Law and the limits of State interference. When strong, they
talked of the need for a godly discipline. In denying themselves many
pleasures which others would think harmless, they could still take
pleasure in power and cruelty. Their final authority was God; that is,
holy scripture as interpreted by themselves.

CHAPTER XI

Theocracy justified in Theory

THEOCRATIC government, if based upon a revealed religion,
rests upon an assumption which is, to the behever, manifestly
true. Simplest of these is the Muslim creed There is no God but
Allah and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah'. Once that is agreed,
the rest follows logically. Government should follow Muhammad's
precept and example. If it is agreed, similarly, that 'Jesus is the Son
of God', it remains only to discover and follow his ideas and practice.
The Buddhist's argument had been much the same and was framed
at an earlier date, it need not astonish us, therefore, to discover that
the more fervent believers in the revealed religions have left us few
works of political theory. On the one hand, they have many of them
regarded this world as too transitory to be worth amending. On the
other hand, such reform as is worth while must be in accordance with
God's will. And, granted the assumption that God's will is known,
the idea of accepting any lesser authority is manifestly absurd. The
theoretical explanations of Theocracy are not, therefore, concerned
for the most part with the abstract question of what is best. They are
concerned more with interpreting God's will and applying it to the
problem in hand.

Among the first of these religious thinkers was St. Augustine (a.d.
354-430) the Bishop of Hippo, his diocese being now known as Bona,
in Algeria. More of a philosopher than St. Ambrose, he wrote his
De Civitate Dei after the sack of Rome in 410, not completing it
however until 426. His first object was to prove (as he easily might)
that Rome's fall was not due, as some alleged, to the weakening
influence of Christianity. He goes on, however, from there to show
that the world is divided into two societies, those who dwell in the
invisible City of God, and those who dwell in sin. The worldly
society must be absorbed by the City of God, for 'the hell of secular
society unredeemed by Christianity is not even capable of improve-
ment'. He infers, therefore, that Christianity can improve the State.
More than that, he would have the State closely bound up with the
Church. He does not, however, in so many words, make the lay ruler
subordinate. A modern writer has expressed Augustine's position
thus:

The Christian ruler needs the Church for guidance in the spiritual

142

THEOCRACY JUSTIFIED IN THEORY 143

life: the bishops need the help of the secular law to deal with secular
affairs; in theory they ought to work together in harmony, but the
moment they cease to do so the spiritual authority will be invoked. St.
Augustine has stated the fundamental axiom that the secular state
was spiritually dead unless it made a close alliance with the Church,
and human life only intelligible and significant in the light of the
doctrine of the Fall and the Redemption. ^

That is St. Augustine's basic assumption but he argues, further,
that God has prescribed (and was bound to prescribe) how even the
secular State should be ruled. In an eloquent passage he asks, in
effect, how it could be otherwise:

Wherefore the great and mighty God with His Word and His Holy
Spirit (which three are one), God only omnipotent. Maker and
Creator of every soul, and of every body, in participation of whom,
all such are happy that follow His truth and reject vanities: He that
made man a reasonable creature of soul and body, and He that did
neither let him pass unpunished for his sin, nor yet excluded him from
mercy: He that gave both unto good and bad essence with the stones,
power of production with the trees, senses with the beasts of the field,
and understanding with the angels: He, from whom is all being, beauty,
form and order, number, weight and measure: He, from whom all
nature, mean and excellent, all seeds of form, all forms of seed, all
motion, both of forms and seeds derive and have being: He that gave
flesh the original beauty, strength, propagation, form and shape,
health and symmetry: He that gave the unreasonable soul, sense,
memory and appetite, the reasonable besides these phantasy, under-
standing, and will: He (I say) having left neither heaven, nor earth,
nor angel, nor man, no nor the most base and contemptible creature,
neither the bird's feather, nor the herb's flower, nor the tree's leaf,
without the true harmony of their parts, and peaceful concord of
composition; it is no way credible, that He would leave the kingdoms
of men, and their bondages and freedoms loose and uncomprised in
the laws of His eternal providence."

St. Augustine's argument proceeds from this point. The secular
State has a right order of its own and, rightly ordered, can be useful to
those who dwell in the City of God. It has a relative value, based
upon and adjusted to sinful human nature. Thus, such institutions as
government, property and slavery have a value where sin has made
an absolute righteousness impossible. When the secular State is
absorbed by the City of God they will disappear. In the meanwhile,
they are better than disorder and are instituted accordingly by God.
But St. Augustine is careful to emphasise that the supreme good
cannot be attained by any earthly means, whatever pagan philosophy

' Western Political Thought. John Bowie. London, 1947. p. 138.
' The Citv of God. St. Augustine. Translated by John Healey. 1610. Reprinted,
London, 1931. (Chapter II).

144 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

may have taught. Thus the pagan virtues of temperance, prudence,
justice and fortitude do not lead (without God) to happiness; and
fortitude by itself leads only to suicide. The supreme good is eternal
peace, peace of the soul, which comes only from God. It should be
attained successively in the home, the city, the state, the world and
the universe. Until this happens, a relative peace may be enjoyed in
any society based on love where:

They who exercise authority are in the service of those over whom
they appear to exercise authority; and they exercise their authority
not from a desire for domination but by virtue of a duty to give counsel
and aid.^

While, however, agreeing that a wise and virtuous rule may exist,
he emphasises that the rule is ordained by God and that a bad rule
is intended as a punishment.

. . . This one God . . . whilst it was His pleasure, let Rome have
sovereignty: so did He with Assyria and Persia who (as their books
say) worshipped only two gods.

. . . And so for the men: He that gave Marius rule, gave Caesar rule:
He that gave Augustus it, gave Nero it. . . . He that gave it to Con-
stantine the Christian, gave it also to Julian the Apostate, whose
worthy towardness was wholly blinded by sacrilegious curiosity. . . r

So far from advising revolt against a bad ruler St. Augustine doubts
even whether it matters sufficiently.

For what skills it in respect of this short and transitory life, under
whose dominion a mortal man doth live, so he be not compelled to
acts of impiety or injustice. . . . [He argues that the States conquered
by Rome might just as well have given in by agreement.] For what does
conquering, or being conquered, hurt or profit men's lives, manners,
or dignities either? I see no good it does, but only adds unto their
intolerable vainglory, who aim at such matters, and war for them, and
lastly receive them as their labour's reward. . . . Take away vain-
glory and what are men but men ?^

He remarks elsewhere on the futility of war, observing that one
State will attack another 'and if it conquer, it extols itself and so
becomes its own destruction . . . thus is the victory deadly; for it
cannot keep a sovereignty for ever where it got a victory for once'.
He points out that men desire an earthly peace and seek it through
war, but even if they gain it (while still neglecting the City of God and
eternal victory) 'misery must needs follow'. He returns to this theme
in Chapter XII, Book XV.

' St. Augustine, op. cit. Introduction, p.xliii.
= Ibid. Chap. VIII. Book V.
^ Ibid.

THEOCRACY JUSTIFIED IN THEORY 145

. . . joy and peace are desired alike of all men. The warrior would but
conquer: war's aim is nothing but glorious peace: what is victory but a
suppression of resistants, which being done, peace follows? So that
peace is war's purpose, the scope of all military discipline, and the
limit at which all just contentions level. All men seek peace by war, but
none seek war by peace. For they that perturb the peace they live in,
do it not for hate of it, but to shew their power in alteration of it.
They would not disannul it, but they would have it as they like; and
though they break into seditions from the rest, yet must they hold a
peaceful force with their fellows that are engaged with them, or else
they shall never effect what they intend. Even the thieves themselves
that molest all the world besides them, are at peace amongst themselves.

If peace is thus desired by all, how much better is the universal
peace which comes from God.

St. Augustine has thus little encouragement to offer to the intending
rebel. Nor has he more than spiritual consolation to offer to the slave.
He supposes that slavery may be a punishment for sin but argues that
there are worse fates than slavery.

... it is a happier servitude to serve man than lust: for lust (to omit all
the other passions) practises extreme tyranny upon the hearts of those
that serve it, be it lust after sovereignty or fleshly lust. But in the peace-
ful orders of states, wherein one man is under another, as humility does
benefit the servant, so does pride endamage the superior. But take a
man as God created him at first, and so he is neither slave to man nor
to sin. But penal servitude had the institution from that law which
commands the conservation, and forbids the disturbance of nature's
order: for if that law had not first been transgressed, penal servitude
had never been enjoined.

Therefore the apostle warns servants to obey their masters and to
serve them with cheerfulness, and good will: to the end that if they
cannot be made free by their masters, they make their servitude a
freedom to themselves, by serving them not in deceitful fear, but in
faithful love, until iniquity be overpassed, and all men's power and
principality dis-annulled and God only be all in all.

Speaking thus as member of a formerly (and still potentially)
persecuted minority, St. Augustine thus preaches a doctrine of non-
resistance. The persecution is by God's will and for the benefit of
those afflicted, whose compensation shall be in the life hereafter and
whose immediate consolation may be in the thought that the perse-
cutor is doing more harm to himself than to those he oppresses. But
there is to this doctrine an important exception. It does not matter
under whose rule a person may live 'so he be not compelled to acts of
impiety or injustice'. But what if he isl St. Augustine does not ex-
pressly enjoin resistance but the doctrinal loophole is there. For,

146 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

granted that the behever should suffer death rather than commit an
act of impiety, must he also resign himself to having his children
brought up as pagans and so lost to salvation? The inference is that
he may ultimately have to resist oppression in the name of Christ.

But a far greater importance attaches to St. Augustine's advice to.
the Christian who finds himself in power, with the force, the numbers
and the law on his side. How is he to use his authority? First of all,
he is (as we have seen) to serve those over whom he appears to rule.
His responsibility is to be a burden rather than a privilege, more
especially if he is Emperor.

For we Christians do not say, that Christian emperors are happy,
because they have a long reign, or die leaving their sons in quiet
possession of their empires, or have been ever victorious, or powerful
against all their opposers. These are but gifts and solaces of this
laborious, joyless life; idolaters, and such as belong not to God (as
these emperors do) may enjoy them. . . . But happy they are (say we)
if they reign justly, free from being puffed up with the glossing exalta-
tions of their attendance, or the cringes of their subjects, if they know
themselves to be but men ... if their lusts be the lesser because they
have the larger licence ... if they do all things, not for glory, but for
charity, and with all, and before all, give God the due sacrifice of
prayer, for their imperfections; such Christian emperors we call happy,
here in hope, and hereafter, when the time we look for comes
indeed. . . .^

Here we have a sketch of the ruler's character, his essential humility,
but no suggested policy. A hint of what he is to do is contained, how-
ever, in another passage, devoted to the example of the Christian
martyrs, which concludes: —

. . . the kings whose edicts afilicted the Church came humbly to be
warriors under that banner which they cruelly before had sought
utterly to abolish: beginning now to persecute the false gods, for
whom before they had persecuted the servants of the true God."

This is an historical statement and one we need not question. But
St. Augustine does not blame the later persecution as he blames, or
seems to blame, the first. 'Warriors' we may take in a metaphorical
sense if we choose. But it is doubtful whether St. Augustine could
consistently deplore any political pressure which would lead to
conversions and to the baptism of those otherwise damned to all
eternity.

On the vital question of how the Christian ruler is to treat pagan or
heretical subjects St. Augustine is not explicit. He is, on the other hand,
emphatic on the question of how a Christian master should treat his

' St. Augustine, op. cit. Chap. XV. Book V.

■" St. Augustine, op. cit. Chap. XXXIX. Book XIV

THEOCRACY JUSTIFIED IN THEORY 147

children and servants. Dealing with what he calls 'the just law of
sovereignty', he explains^ that 'our righteous forefathers' did not
treat their servants and their children alike in all respects, save in
matters of religion. For religious purposes they were fathers of their
households, servants and all.

. . . But such as merit that name truly, do care that all their families
should continue in the service of God, as if they were all their own
children, desiring that they should all be placed in the household of
heaven, where command is wholly unnecessary, because then they are
past their charge, having attained immortality, which until they be
installed in, the masters are to endure more labour in their govern-
ment, than the servants in their service. If any be disobedient and
offend this just peace, he is forthwith to be corrected, with strokes, or
some other convenient punishment, whereby he may be re-engraffed
into the peaceful stock from whence his disobedience has torn him.
For as it is no good turn to help a man unto a smaller good by the loss
of a greater: no more is it the part of innocence by pardoning a small
offence, to let it grow unto a fouler. It is the duty of an innocent to
hurt no man, but, withal, to curb sin in all he can, and to correct sin
in whom he can, that the sinner's correction may be profitable to
himself, and his example a terror unto others. Every family then being
part of the city, every beginning having some relation unto some end,
and every part tending to the integrity of the whole, it follows
apparently, that the family's peace adheres unto the city's, that is the
orderly command and obedience in the family has real reference to the
orderly rule and subjection in the city. So that 'the father of the
family' may fetch his instruction from the city's government, whereby
he may proportionate the peace of his private estate, by that of the
common.

If we accept St. Augustine's comparison between family and state
(or city), we may fairly assume that the relationship is not that of a
one-sided imitation. If the father of a household is to copy the
impartial sway of the town council, is not the ruler to regard himself
as the father of his people? Should he not treat his subjects as the
father is to treat his children? St. Augustine's ideal ruler is to regard
his responsibility as a heavy burden, assumed reluctantly. This was
no novelty as an idea — Indian Brahmans had the same conception
and had it long before. But the Christian ruler, if he regards his
subjects as his children, may, and in fact must, curb and correct sin in
such fashion that 'the sinner's correction may be profitable to himself
and his example a terror unto others' And what is sin ? Sin is and can
only be the sort of action which Christ would have disapproved. The
subject will fare ill, therefore, who differs from his bishop or ruler in
his interpretation of Christ's teaching. And he will certainly fare
worse if he rejects it altogether.

' St. Augustine, op. cit. Chap. XVI. Book XV.

148 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

As against the gods of pagan mythology, St. Augustine can afford
to be only mildly severe. He regards them as devils rather than
illusions. The stage-plays connected with their cult he regards as
merely obscene. As for historians who contend that the world has
existed for many thousands of years, they are talking nonsense; worse,
they are talking heresy. Holy scripture gives the world a past history
of six thousand years at most.^ But St. Augustine was not seriously
worried about pagan beliefs, which he knew to be on the wane. The
mischief was to begin when the Church should be confronted, not by
a dying pagan mythology but by an active faith like Islam, as positive
as Christianity in doctrine and almost as intolerant in practice.
Towards such a heresy the Christian attitude is perfectly clear from
the fifth century onwards. It is the argument outlined in The City of
God and absorbed by such readers as Gregory the Great, Charle-
magne, Peter Abelard and Dante. By this argument the secular State
is necessary and ordained by God, even a bad ruler deserving obedi-
ence. But the Christian ruler must seek the advice of the Church in
matters of doctrine and ethics; for his is only a man, and not even a
priest. The Christian prince must then, on ecclesiastical advice, curb
sin and correct sinners for their own good. This may not seem an
attractive programme to the reader of to-day. But it is the logical
consequence of all that St. Augustine believed. Granted his original
premise that all unbelievers are destined for eternal torment, it
scarcely matters what means are used to save them. A little violence
may surely be used to prevent a blind man going over a precipice. It
is cruelty to spare the child punishment. It is worse cruelty to allow
the heretic to corrupt others. Better, far better, is the chastisement
which helps the sinner to repent.

It would be possible to trace this central theme of theocratic
government through the whole history of Medieval Europe. We could
quote extensively from the trial of St. Joan to illustrate the inexorable
logic of this doctrine. It is conveniently summed up, however, in the
sentence pronounced by the judges, the Bishop and the Inquisitor; and
again in the report sent afterwards to the Pope from the University
of Paris. The sentence reads:

... As often as the poisonous virus of heresy obstinately attaches
itself to a member of the Church and transforms him into a limb of
Satan, most diligent care must be taken to prevent the foul contagion
of this pernicious leprosy from spreading .... The decrees of the holy
Fathers have laid down that hardened heretics must be separated from
the midst of the just, rather than permit such pernicious vipers to lodge
in the bosom of Our Holy Mother Church, to the great peril of the
rest. ...

' St. Augustine, op. cit. Chap. X. Book XI.

THEOCRACY JUSTIFIED IN THEORY 149

... we denounce you as a rotten member, which, so that you shall not
infect the other members of Christ, must be cast out of the unity of
the Church, cut off from her body, and given over to the secular
power . . . [i.e. to be burnt alive]. ^

The letter agreed by the University of Paris, 'the light of all know-
ledge and the extirpator of errors',' is more significant still.

We believe, most Holy Father, that vigilant endeavours to prevent
the contamination of the Holy Church by the poison of the errors of
false prophets and evil men, are the more necessary since the end of
the world appears to be at hand.

... So when we see new prophets arise who boast of receiving revela-
tions from God and the blessed of the triumphant land, when we see
them announce to men the future and things passing the keenness of
human thought, daring to accomplish new and unwonted acts, then it
is fitting to our pastoral solicitude to set all our energies to prevent
them from overwhelming the people, too eager to believe new things,
by these strange doctrines, before the spirits which they claim to come
from God have been confirmed. It would indeed be easy for these
crafty and dangerous sowers of deceitful inventions to infect the
Catholic people, if everyone, without the approbation and consent of
our Holy Mother Church, were free to invent supernatural revelations
at his own pleasure, and could usurp the authority of God, and His
saints. Therefore, most Holy Father, the watchful diligence lately
sTiown by the reverend father in Christ, the lord bishop of Beauvais
and the vicar of the lord Inquisitor of Heretical Error, appointed by the
apostolic Holy See to the kingdom of France, for the protection of the
Christian religion, seems to us most commendable,
[the letter describes the trial and execution].

. . . Wherefore it was clearly recognised by all how dangerous it was,
how fearful, to give too light credence to the modern irventions which
have for some time past been scattered in this most Christian kingdom,
not by this woman only, but by many others also; and all the faithful
of the Christian religion must be warned by such a sad example not to
act so hastily after their own desires, but to listen to the teachings of the
Church and the instruction of the prelates rather than the fables of
superstitious women. For if we are at last through our own faults
arrived at the point where witches falsely prophesying in God's name
but without His authority, are better received by the frivolous people
than pastors and doctors of the Church to whom Christ formerly said,
'Go ye and teach the nations', the end is come, religion will perish, faith
is in decay, the Church is trampled underfoot and the iniquity of
Satan dominates the whole world.

This fairly sums up the case for Theocracy; nor is it without sub-
stance. To begin with, the statement that a general tendency to listen

' The Trial of Jeanne d'Arc. Trans, and ed. by W. P. Barrett. London, 1931. pp.
328-329.

- Barrett, op. cit. p. 307.

150 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

to individual thinkers rather than to the accepted doctrine would
mean the end of the Church is manifestly true. That is exactly what
happened, and more especially in France. It is true again that many of
the 'modern inventions' were silly or even harmful. Nor can it be
denied that reported miracles are likely to be investigated more
competently by theologians than by ignorant peasants. As against
that, there seems to many people, and indeed to many Christians, a
certain divergence between the example given by Christ and the ex-
ample made by his followers in the market place of Rouen in 1431.
In concluding, as they did, that the end of the world was at hand,
the doctors of the University of Paris were not far from the truth. The
end of their world was indeed approaching. But it would be utterly
wrong to assume that the history of European Theocracy ends with
the Reformation. Religious persecution continued in its Protestant
guise and indeed continues still. Its essence is still what it has always
been; government in accordance with doctrines which those governed
may not share. Charge III in the indictment of St. Joan read 'That this
woman is apostate, for the hair which God gave her for a veil she has
untimely cut off, and also, with the same design has rejected woman's
dress and imitated the costume of men'. In the London of to-day it is
natural for any intelligent person to wonder whether St. Joan's
offence, on this particular charge, might not have been less than
capital. But laws as fantastic are everywhere being enforced and
supported by arguments which are just as absurd. To marry a second
wife in England is as much an offence as to drink wine in Pakistan —
or, at one time, in the United States. To buy a lottery ticket is per-
fectly proper in a Muslim state but is illegal in the British colony
adjacent. A Chinese gambling game is stopped by a British police
officer who then goes on to play bridge at his Club. To smoke tobacco
is innocent, to smoke opium is a crime. The book that is compulsory
reading in one country is promptly seized and burnt in the next. All
states are still theocratic in so far as their laws are based upon a
revealed religion and not upon principles of reason. The extent to
which this is so is shown by the divergence of the laws themselves. In
so far as they are reasonable, they are mostly alike as between one
State and another. In so far as they differ completely they are based on
revealed religion. For the revelations of the divine will presented to
mankind by those apparently inspired, while all impressive in their
own way, have shown little resemblance to each other.

CHAPTER XII

The Theocracy of Commimism

IF the political characteristics of Theocracy are to include a Founder,
a Mythology, a Sacred Book, a Priesthood, a place of pilgrimage
and an Inquisition, Communism must be ranked among the great
religions of the world. There are some who will object that a religion
implies a god. There is enough, perhaps, in this objection to justify
allotting Communism a chapter to itself. There is not, clearly, reason
sufficient to exclude it from the list of religions. For Buddhism was
founded by a thinker who certainly believed in no god within the
comprehension of his disciples. He might have believed in something
akin to the Life Force as revered by George Bernard Shaw. But that
did not prevent him founding a religion, with sects and heresies and
biblical criticism. For lack of any god in which he believed, his
followers simply made a god of him. There is therefore no reason to
suppose that the deified Lenin will not be the god of Communism.
For the atheist becoming a god there is ample precedent already.

While, however. Communism would seem to be a nascent or actual
religion, it is not a creed of great importance in the history of
political thought; and this is due, in the main, to the circumstances of
its origin. Karl Marx, founder of the creed, was born at Trier in
Rhenish Prussia in 1818. The son of a Jewish lawyer who turned
Protestant in 1824, he studied jurisprudence, history and philosophy
at Bonn, graduating in 1841 after submitting his doctoral thesis on
the philosophy of Epicurus. His revotutionary and atheistic ideas
prevented him from becoming a lecturer at Bonn but allowed him to
marry Jenny von Westphalen, sister of the Prussian Minister of the
Interior. Marx then went to Paris where he became close friends with
Frederick Engels. He was deported from France in 1845 and joined
the Communist League in Belgium. He was in France again during
the revolution of 1848 but then returned to Germany, where he edited
a newspaper until banished again in 1849. He then took refuge in
London and lived there until his death in 1883. Most of his writing
was done after 1850 and in the reading room of the British Museum,
Das Kapital being unfinished when he died. He and his wife lived in
two rooms in Dean Street,^ where they had six children of whom three

' This was not Marx's only address. Bv 1 88 1 he was living at 41, Maitland Park Road,
N.W.

151

152 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

(all daughters) survived. He lived upon an allowance of £350 a year
from Engels, a legacy of £800 and an occasional sovereign for an
article in the New York Tribune. Marx lived at his desk, knew little of
practical affairs and less of the working class he sought to befriend.
After thirty years in London he still lived among German exiles,
knowing nothing about England or the English. He had all the single-
minded purpose of a Hebrew prophet (which is what he was) and
ruthlessly sacrificed his wife and family, friends and disciples. He had
an abstract pity for the poor but his capacity for hatred was more
obvious than his capacity for affection.

So much biography is essential to fix the date and background of
his work. Marxism may sound contemporary as a doctrine but Marx
himself lived in the world of Dickens, Wellington and Queen Victoria.
His was a background of top-hats, frock-coats and horse-drawn
carriages. He lived long ago, making prophecies which, whether
proved or disproved, are no longer predictions. Much has happened
since his time, including two world wars and several industrial
revolutions, the lengthening of human life by about ten years and the
invention of contrivances which may well extinguish human society
altogether; or, anyway, the civilisation of which Karl Marx was the
rather bilious product. Much can be claimed for Marx as a thinker,
a prophet, and a personality. But there is one thing which no one can
claim. No one can now regard his ideas as new.

His ideas are older even than the dates of his career would suggest.
For he was not, in his Dean Street period, trying to discover the laws
of economics. He had decided in advance what he was trying to prove.
His views are already outlined in the Communist Manifesto of 1847-8,
which he helped to compile.^ He began writing Das Kapital in 1867
but to prove theories he had accepted in 1845 or earlier. Das Kapital
remains the text-book of communist economic thought. There are,
however, few other subjects in which the student is given a text-book
begun in 1867 and embodying theories dating from 1845. Nor,
incidentally, does Marx quite manage to achieve a scientific im-
partiality. The violence of the sedentary philosopher breaks out when
he interrupts his economic argument with words like these: 'The
expropriation of the immediate producers was accomplished with
merciless vandalism, and under the stimulus of passions the most
infamous, the most sordid, the pettiest, the most meanly odious'.
Surely a consistent materialist would have seen these sordid passions
as mere obedience to the economic laws by which all are governed?
And if we are to use words like 'infamous' about people who are
'merciless', we must have some moral standards by which to judge

' Social-Economic Movements. H. W. Laidler. London, 1948. (International Library
of Sociology and Social Reconstruction). Chapter 14. pp. 130-144.

THE THEOCRACY OF COMMUNISM 153

them. But moral (that is, reUgious) standards are bourgeois ana-
chronisms in which Marx could not possibly believe.

Das Kapital is not, therefore, comparable with any scientific
textbook. It has been called 'The Bible of the Working Man', an
expression which gives a clue to its nature, it should rather be com-
pared with the Bible, the Koran or the Analects. It is only religious
texts that never go out of date. But if it is a religion that we have to
study, we shall have to distinguish between the doctrine taught by
the Founder and the Theology evolved since by his admirers. Thus we
have, in Marxism, the Bible of Orthodoxy which none may contra-
dict. We have the priests who preach on selected passages. We have
the scholars who wrangle over the interpretation. We have all the
early intolerance of Christianity and all the early fanaticism of
Islam. There is an Inquisition to deal with heretics just as Christians
have dealt with their own deviationists in the past. After this process
the Marxism practised may have only a theoretical relationship to the
original doctrine. The legends, literature, customs and ritual built up
round the Founder's memory must always tend to obscure what he
actually taught.

Marxist doctrine, if we omit for the present what is not vital to
the argument, centres upon the philosophy of dialectical materialism,
the Marxist view of History and the Marxist doctrine of revolution.
The materialist believes that the only world is that which we perceive
with our senses and that our ideas are only a reflection of what we
perceive. The idea of 'Dialectics' is borrowed frorn Darwin and
applied by Marx to society. According to this theory nature and
society are in the midst of a dynamic evolutionary development.
This evolution is by a process of conflict, contradiction or struggle
between two opposing forces or ideas; collision between which
produces something different from either. Thus, Private Property
(the Thesis) conflicts with the Proletariat (the Antithesis) to produce
the Abolition of Property and Class (the Synthesis). This may not
seem immediately helpful but it reminds us of one advantage that
Marx had and which previous thinkers had lacked. The Origin of
Species appeared in 1859 and Marx had read it. More than that, he
grasped its implications. Whereas most theoretical writers had de-
cided (like Plato) on an ideal organization of society, towards which
men should strive, Marx realised that its organization could not be
static. However originally fixed, it would evolve. What he was seeking
to discover was not a final and frozen state of achievement but the
laws which would govern the expected development. Marx was to
that extent thinking on modern lines.

To come now to the Marxist interpretation of history, Marx held
that all ideological and political ideas are rooted in material or

154 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

economic circumstances. The current moral and ethical ideas may be
honestly held (and a few individuals may even preach, ineffectually,
the opposite point of view) but they are based, in fact, on economic
interests. It follows that all the conflicts recorded in history — what-
ever their pretext — were conflicts over material wealth. In the words
of the manifesto: 'The history of all known society, past and present,
has been the history of class struggles'. This theory is pursued back to
the Middle Ages when a dissatisfied merchant class used the idea of
nationalism to lessen the power of nobility, church and Pope. The
Reformation — to follow the argument — intensified the process; from
which period the merchant class or bourgeoisie went on to abolish,
or reduce to impotence, the monarchy as well. Politically secure, the
bourgeoisie could then multiply its wealth by successive revolutions
in agriculture, commerce and industry. The result is a Capitalist
Society, defended by parliamentary rule. But the Capitalist Society
has an inward tendency by which profits fall unless sustained by
further mechanisation, by the exploitation of new markets or by a
change in the scale of industry — the smaller capitalists being
absorbed by the greater. So the rich become richer and fewer, the
proletariat poorer and larger until the tyranny of the few becomes
absurd. Revolution follows, as a result of which the proletariat
seizes power. This sequence is inevitable and invariable and can end
in no other way. The dictatorship of the proletariat is bound to come.
There is substance in this argument as an analysis, from one point
of view, of the history which Karl Marx had studied. We should,
however, beware of concluding that any one scholarly interpretation
of history is truer than any other. History can be looked at from a
variety of angles — the political, the religious, the medical, the legal,
the scientific and the cultural (to name no others) — and the difference
between the resulting books lies in their authors' approach. Thus the
same object can be viewed from different directions, from near at
hand or from far away. It is needless to argue about the merits of the
different viewpoints. They all give us an aspect of truth. No sensible
historian will maintain that his point of view is the only one that
matters. He may consider, however (and he probably will) that too
few people have appreciated the merits of his viewpoint. He may also
believe (and invariably does) that certain other historians are cross-
eyed, colour-blind and afflicted with cataract in both eyes. He will
sympathise with them publicly about their ailments and disabilities
but he will not argue that their standpoint is an impossible one. The
truth was there for them to see but it just so happened that they
were — for all practical purposes — blind. Should a scholar write a
history of civilisation solely in terms of plumbing, high explosives or
venereal disease, we should not seek to belittle his work on that

THE THEOCRACY OF COMMUNISM 155

account. He has a right to his own point of view. In exactly the same
way, any sane scholar will find much that is valuable in the economic
interpretation of history. But when some enthusiastic person seizes
upon this one aspect and flatly denies that there is any other, the
historian will regard him as an amateur; a man who has read one
book and found in it the whole truth of the universe. And an
amateur is exactly what Karl Marx was.

What else could he be? He spent, it is true, many years of study
but during a period when there was all too little for him to read. We
have seen that his major advantage, as a political thinker, lay in his
knowledge of the theory of evolution. But we do not suppose that he
(or Darwin for that matter) knew more than a fraction of what is
known to-day. Biology, like Physics and Chemistry, has progressed
rather dramatically since 1883; as most people probably realise.
Fewer, perhaps, will realise that the study of History has progressed
as much. Karl Marx could read Ranke, Treitschke, Guizot and
Thiers, but the systematic study of history in England had hardly
begun. In 1847, the date by which his main theory had been formed,
Stubbs was aged 22 and Cunningham and Maitland were not yet born.
Gardiner began to publish his History of the English Revolution in
1863, Stubbs his Constitutional History in 1874. The first volume of
Lecky's History of England in the \Sth Century appeared in 1878 and
Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce in 1882.
The English Historical Review published its first number in 1886
(after Marx had died). Marx was also dead before F. W. Maitland had
the Downing Chair at Cambridge, before Freeman took the Chair at
Oxford and long before the publication of the History of English Law.
The Oxford School of History was not even separated from that of
Law until 1872, nor Sir J. R. Seeley appointed Regius Professor at
Cambridge until 1869.

History has progressed, in fact, since 1847 and progressed still
more since the turn of the century. It has moved backwards into pre-
history, forward into the events which have happened since Marx's
death, outwards into Oriental and American fields hitherto uncharted
and inwards into the history of science of which we have so far
scarcely scratched the surface. Marx tries, in effect, to formulate a
general rule from a single example. Whereas we have evidence of
civilisations rising and falling over a period of some 30,000 years,
Marx rests his economic theory on an analysis of about 500 years of
one civiHsation; and his analysis ante-dates the very beginnings of
economic history as a serious field of study.

If Karl Marx based his prophecy on a too narrow range of facts,
there is a fallacy implicit in the prophecy itself. This might be called
the fallacy of the three Weird Sisters. They hailed Macbeth, it will be

156 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

remembered, as Thane of Glamis, as Thane of Cawdor and as
'King hereafter'. This last prediction had for Macbeth the credibiUty
attaching to a third prophesy when two have proved correct. But the
first told him nothing but what he and they and everyone knew. The
second told him of something which had already taken place but of
which they had prior information. The third prophecy has therefore
to stand alone, a mere assertion, unsupported by any previously
successful forecast. Marx argues that because a merchant class or
aristocracy seizes power from a nobility, monarchy and church, it
will diminish in size through the operation of economic laws until it
becomes vulnerable to the lower-class revolt which he regards as
inevitable. But this does not follow. For one thing, the tendency for
industry to concentrate may be paralleled by the tendency of an
aristocracy to disperse and so widen the governing class. For another
thing, Marx does not allow for the eflfect of his own and other similar
predictions. Whereas his admirers could agree to hasten the result
which Marx thought in any case certain, his opponents might take
steps to avert a result which they could regard as, at any rate, possible.
Apart from that, we can now better assess the prophecy of 1847 in
the light of all that has occurred since. There was good reason for
expecting revolutions in 1847 and one such revolution actually took
place. Tension afterwards lessened and the various Socialist groups
(the First International, as their organisation has since been called)
made little progress. In fact, those who upheld Marx's views had far
more influence in 1848 than they were to have in 1860-80, a period of
less potential disorder. The revolution which Marx expected to hap-
pen in Germany seemed, in Bismark's time, extremely remote. The
revolution which he would have liked to see in Britain was as im-
probable but for a different reason. For most of the English Socialists
turned out to be Methodists and similarly pious people to whom
Materialism (and therefore Marxism) was merely irreligious.

Marxism appealed mainly, in the end, to Russian revolutionaries.
For these had something to work on; a discontented people, an
intellectually worried and conscience-stricken aristocracy and an
obsolete medieval form of government which no other European
people could approve. Except in Russia, communism mostly died out,
to be revived only after 1917. Russian communists mostly lived
outside Russia and were widely tolerated, either because they were
not taken seriously or because of the dislike felt for Tsarist Russia by
all European liberals. The political principles upon which Tsarist
government was founded were Autocracy, Nationality and Ortho-
doxy. The political methods for which Russia was noted involved the
constant use of secret police, spies, informers, torture and Siberian
exile. There are said to have been 3,282 executions, after trial, be-

THE THEOCRACY OF COMMUNISM 157

tween 1906 and 1913. Neither these principles nor these methods
appealed to Queen Victoria or Mr. Gladstone. They seemed then
(they even seem now) essentially wrong.

Russian revolutionaries had, therefore, secure bases in Europe
from which to organise revolt in Russia. But what sort of government
was to take the place of the one they meant to overthrow? It was on
this subject that their holy scripture was least helpful. Karl Marx had
very little to say about politics as such. He merely asserted that the
proletariat, once in power and having no other class to rule and
subdue, would find politics needless and the State itself unnecessary.
Meanwhile, until the State 'withers away', there must presumably be
government of some kind. Marx apparently envisaged his proletarian
dictatorship as centring on a Commune or Communal Council,
having both legislative and executive functions and based upon a
universal franchise. It is clear that his proletariat will abolish all
standing military forces, all offices that are not elective and all
churches — or, anyway, all religious endowments. Negatively, the
Marxist programme is fairly complete. We know little of Marx's
more constructive ideas on the political side. As for the State
'withering away', Marxist doctrine makes actual revolution essential
to progress; and the military or semi-military leadership needed for
a successful revolt seems, in practice, easier to introduce than to
terminate. Apart from that, Marx had perhaps hardly understood the
political implications of his own creed. For, granted that industrial
combines would become larger and larger, as he said they would and
as they did, the organisations built up could only be taken over
(after the revolution) by the State. Marx was no machine-wrecker, no
William Morris or G. K. Chesterton. He neither wanted nor expected
to see the last capitalist hurled into the blazing ruins of the last factory.
Granted, however, that the factories were to remain after the capi-
talists had all been hanged, they would obviously be nationalised.
And how could a State controlling whole industries be expected to
'wither away'? And what would happen to the industries if it did?

Karl Marx was not a fool and the clue to the absurdity of his
political idealism lies mainly in the period from which it dates. To a
man born at Trier in 1818, graduating at Bonn in 1841, the idea of
industry on the modern scale was altogether alien. His was the back-
ground of the Rhineland, the vineyards and the little German towns.
It was easy for him to picture a revolution in which large capitalists —
the biggest tradesmen in each town — were eliminated. It was easy
for him to imagine, in his bucolic surroundings, how groups of
peasants and workers could then run industries for themselves. Given
the disappearance of war, foreign relations, church and king, no
political functions would remain; none, at least, beyond the capacity

158 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

of a socialistic town council. He hardly realised the implications of
the railway; and the growth of industries as we know them did not
begin until about 1870. Had he foreseen the scale of modern industry,
he would not have assumed that the State could 'wither away'. He
would have known that it would have economic functions even if it
had no other. And he might, in that case, have paid a little more
attention to the political aftermath of the revolution he wished to
bring about. As it was, his political ideas scarcely progress beyond
the lamp-post on which the last capitalist is to be hanged. From the
moment when they overthrew the Tsar his Russian admirers had no
further help from Marx. They were left to work out the problem for
themselves and their solution was the simplest imaginable. They
gave Russia almost exactly the same government as it had had before.

This result was partly due to the character of the Russian Marxists
and partly to the nature of the problem they were left to solve. Their
party had grown up in conspiratorial fashion in an atmosphere of
danger, suspicion and fear of betrayal. They developed the strict
party discipline that was essential for safety. They developed a
fanatical adherence to the word of Karl Marx, whose writings were
as important to them as was the Talmud to the exiled Jews. Many
of them, incidentally, were in fact Jewish, like Marx himself. They had
a tendency, Jewish again, to quarrel over the exact interpretation of
biblical texts. When the Tsarist government collapsed during the
First World War, the small Communist Party was disciplined
enough and quick enough to seize power during the disorders which
followed. Their power was consolidated by external dangers against
which a party leader could appeal to nationalist sentiment. The
result was that their Autocracy (of the party chief), their Nationalism
(as defenders of Russia) and their Orthodoxy (as Marxists) repro-
duced the main principles, and encouraged them to adopt the same
methods, as the government they had overturned.

This is the more comprehensible when we remember that their
problem was the same. Soviet Russia comprised, even in its early
days, 8i million square miles, nearly ^th of the earth's surface; an
area larger than the United States and China together. Distances
ranged up to 5,000 miles from East to West, and almost 3,000 miles
from North to South. The population was nearly 192,000,000 in 1939,
comprising Russians, White Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians,
Georgians, Jews, Turkemans, Mongolians, Germans and Finns,
with some seventy languages spoken and taught. Most of these
people were backward, illiterate, irresponsible and feckless. To
govern a country so much larger than Europe or the United States is
a formidable task. It could not, in any case, be governed in the same
way as England or New Zealand. It must be a federation, to begin

THE THEOCRACY OF COMMUNISM 159

with, like the United States. But to maintain a unity among peoples
so numerous, scattered, diverse and backward is the task for a god,
not for a man. Such a federation can be held together only by the
same means as adopted in ancient Egypt or China; by a State
Religion, a Priesthood and a Deified Emperor. That was what Russia
had before and it was what Russia was to have again. But even that
would not suffice without bringing to bear upon the problem all the
devotion of the Jesuits, all the fanaticism of Islam and all the cal-
culated cruelty of the Tsarist police. All this too might fail without a
continual foreign threat and pressure which has to be invented when
it does not exist. ^

What has been called 'the dropping of the Utopian element in
Marxism"' would have been inevitable in any Socialist State much
larger than a village. In a country like Russia the idea of the State
'withering away' could not last five minutes. So far from 'withering
away' the State in Russia has become more powerful, more complex,
more inescapable than in any other country in the world. The Consti-
tution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (as amended in
1947)'^ comprises 146 Articles, refers to sixteen different Republics,
a Supreme Soviet with two Chambers, a Presidium with sixteen Vice-
Presidents, Credentials Committees, a Council of Ministers, thirty-
six all-Union Ministries, twenty-three Union-Republican Ministries,
a Supreme Court, a Procurator-General, and the Soviets of territories,
regions, autonomous regions, areas, districts, cities and rural locali-
ties. As the Union-Republican central Ministries are all represented
again by corresponding Ministries in each of the sixteen Republics,
and as there are separate Ministries of Internal Affairs, State Control,
State Security and Justice, there would seem to be fcvv signs of the
'withering away' process as yet. The mind rather reels when con-
fronted by the mere list of executive and legislative bodies. Elections
are innumerable, the citizen taking part severally as an inhabitant,
a producer, a consumer and possibly as a party-member as well. The
whole structure is more elaborate even than that of the United
States and with full rights guaranteed for everyone — freedom of
speech, freedom of the press, freedom to vote, freedom of assembly
and freedom of association. The suffrage is universal, eqiaal, direct
and secret. The constitutional structure of the U.S.S.R. could not be
more democratic in principle. It is perceptibly less democratic in
practice.

When announcing the Constitution of 1936, Joseph Stalin is

As Karl Marx wrote in 1853: 'There is only one way to deal with a Power like Russia,
and that is the fearless way.' The Russian Menace to Europe. Ed. by P. W. Blackstock
and B. F. Hoselity. Illinois, 1952. p. 269.

- The Spirit of Post-war Russia. Rudolf Schlesinger. London, 1947. p. 180.

'An Introduction to Russian History and Culture. Ivar Spector. New York, 1949.
Appendix, p. 41 1.

160 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

reported as saying 'I must admit the draft of a new Constitution really
does leave in force the regime of the dictatorship of the working class,
and also leaves unchanged the present leading position of the
Communist party of the U.S.S.R.'^ We may take his word for it. But
we must also be clear in our minds about what that 'leading position'
amounts to. It was created, in the first instance, by Lenin, and ante-
dates all the democratic machinery of government. When Bertrand
Russell met Lenin in 1920, he found it difficult at first to see him as
other than commonplace.

I think if 1 had met him without knowing who he was, I should not
have guessed that he was a great man; he struck me as too opinionated
and narrowly orthodox. His strength comes, I imagine, from his
honesty, courage, and unwavering faith — religious faith in the Marxian
gospel, which takes the place of the Christian martyr's hopes of Para-
dise, except that it is less egotistical. He has as little love of liberty as
the Christians who suffered under Diocletian, and retaliated when they
acquired power. Perhaps love of liberty is incompatible with whole-
hearted belief in a panacea for all human ills.-

Lenin's strength of character lay, no doubt, in the qualities which
Bertrand Russell imagined him to possess. His political strength,
however, lay in his firm refusal to take the easy way. From 1900
onwards he must have been almost overwhelmingly tempted to accept
whatever recruits that came. He refused instead to have any that he
could not trust. As Sidney and Beatrice Webb pointed out:

. . . Lenin had no use, within the Party, for mere sympathisers, for
partially converted disciples, for adherents who based their acts on
Christianity or a general humanitarianism, or on any other theory of
social life than Marxism, nor even for those whose interpretation of
Marxism differed from his own. . . . For the instrument of revolution
that he was forging he needed ... a completely united, highly dis-
ciplined and relatively small body of 'professional revolutionists', who
should not only have a common creed and a common programme but
should also undertake to give their whole lives to a single end. . . . The
creation of such a body was no easy task. In interminable controversies
between 1900 and 1916, we watch Lenin driving off successively all
whom he could not persuade to accept his model; all whom he con-
sidered compromisers or temporisers; opportunists or reformists;
half-converted sympathisers who clung to one or other form of mysti-
cism for which Karl Marx had found no place. . . .^

When the Russian Revolution took place, the party members
numbered only 30,000 but these were all picked, indoctrinated,

' Laidler. op. cil. p. 423.

" The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism. Bertrand Russell. London, 1920. p. 37.
' Soviet Communism: A new civilisation. By Sidney and Beatrice Webb. 2 vols.
London, 1937. Vol. I. pp. 341-342.

THE THEOCRACY OF COMMUNISM 161

tested and reliable. And it was, of course, Lenin's exclusion of vaguely
left-wing idealists which made Communism a rehgion, incompatible
with any other. Membership from the beginning implied rigid
orthodoxy, implicit obedience, austerity of life and willingness to
face hard work, hardship and danger.

The Communist who sincerely believes the party creed is convinced
that private property is the root of all evil ; he is so certain of this that
he shrinks from no measures, however harsh, which seem necessary for
constructing and preserving the Communist State. He spares himself
as little as he spares others. He works sixteen hours a day, and foregoes
his Saturday half-holiday. He volunteers for any difficult or dangerous
work which needs to be done. . . . The same motives, however, which
make him austere make him also ruthless. Marx has taught that
Communism is fatally predestined to come about; this fits in with the
Oriental traits in the Russian character, and produces a state of mind
not unlike that of the early successors of Mahomet. Opposition is
crushed without mercy. . . .^

Party membership is attractive, therefore, to the young and
fanatical, to the austere and ardent, to those with a sense of mission.
It does not attract everybody and of those it does attract many are
rejected at the outset, rejected during probation or 'purged' at some
later stage. During the period 1922-27 from 16,000 to 25,000 members
were expelled each year, for slackness, dishonesty, drunkenness or
similar offences.' Numbers, therefore, have mounted only slowly.
There were fewer than half a million members in 1920 and only two
and a half million in 1939. If there were four and a half million in
1942, the membership would have been just over two per cent of the
population. Party members are said to have numbered 6,300,000 in
1947 but the percentage remains low and the policy has always been
to keep the membership exclusive. Parallel with the official assemblies,
the Party has its own organisation, with local Committees, an AU-
Union Congress, a Central Committee and a Political Bureau
(Politburo) which has been the most important governing body in
Russia. The Secretary-General of the Party was, for many years,
Joseph Stalin, and this was, for most of that time, the only office
he held.

The relationship between Party and State has been defined by
Stalin in these words:

... In the Soviet Union, in the land where the dictatorship of the
proletariat is in force, no important political or organizational
problem is ever decided by our Soviets and other mass organizations,
without directives from our Party. In this sense, we may say that the

' Bertrand Russell, op. cit. p. 27.

- Sidney and Beatrice Webb. op. cit. Vol. 1. p. 375.

162 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

dictatorship of the proletariat is substantially the dictatorship of the
Party, as the force which effectively guides the proletariat.^

This admission and the known fact that the vast majority of
Ministers, Deputies and Officials are in fact Party members, taking
their orders from the Party, justifies us in classifying this form of
government as a Theocracy. It has sometimes been held that it is,
rather, a Dictatorship. As against that, Sidney and Beatrice Webb
concluded, after careful investigation, that it is not.

We have given particular attention to this point, collecting all the
available evidence, and noting carefully the inferences to be drawn
from the experience of the past eight years (1926-1934). We do not
think that the Party is governed by the will of a single person; or that
Stalin is the sort of person to claim or desire such a position. He has
himself very explicitly denied any such personal dictatorship in terms
which, whether or not he is credited with sincerity, certainly accord
with our own impression of the facts.-

There can be no doubt that Stalin's power was greater during the
Second World War but the same would be true of Churchill or
Roosevelt. Before that war, Stalin surely exercised something far
short of dictatorial powers. But if we have little reason for concluding
that he was a dictator, we have ample evidence for concluding that
he was a god. We are told that, when Lenin died:

. . . His remains were interred in a dark-red granite mausoleum in the
Red Square of Moscow, which is backed by the Kremlin wall. Three-
quarters of a million people waited in line to view his remains for an
average of five hours in an arctic cold of 30 degrees below zero before
they were able to take their turn in passing through the hall where he
lay in state. ^

It is with reference to this deification of Lenin that the Webbs
were able to explain how Stalin in turn became a god. It was, they
explained, because the party leaders deliberately exploited the
traditional Russian reverence for a personal autocrat.

. . . This was seen in the popular elevation of Lenin, notably after his
death, to the status of saint or prophet, virtually canonised in the
sleeping figure in the sombre mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square,
where he is now, to all intents and purposes worshipped by the adoring
millions of workers and peasants who daily pass before him. Lenin's
works have become 'Holy Writ', which may be interpreted, but which
it is impermissible to confute. After Lenin's death, it was agreed that
his place could never be filled. But some new personality had to be

^Leninism. By J. Stalin. VoL L 1928. p. 33. QLioted in Soviet Communism: a new
civilisation. By Sidney and Beatrice Webb. London, 1937. 2nd ed. Vol. L pp. 430-431.
- Sidney and Beatrice Webb. op. cit. Vol. L p. 432.
' Laidier. op. cit. p. 393.

THE THEOCRACY OF COMMUNISM 163

produced for the hundred and sixty miUions to revere. There presently
ensued a tacit understanding among the junta that Stalin should be
'boosted' as the supreme leader of the proletariat, the Party, and the
state. His portrait and his bust were accordingly distributed by tens
of thousands, and they are now everywhere publicly displayed along
with those of Marx and Lenin. ^

As a potential god, Stalin (the atheist) had a useful qualification in
the training he had received in the Theological Seminary of Tiflis.
He at least must have understood what was required of him as the
third person of a Trinity in which Marx was God and Lenin, Christ.
And the first thing expected of him was a proper reverence for the
gods senior to him.

At the next Congress of the Soviets after Lenin's death, Stalin
chanted his sacred vow in the name of the revolution: 'Departing
from us. Comrade Lenin bequeathed to us the duty of preserving and
strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat. We swear to thee.
Comrade Lenin, that we will not spare our energies in also fulfilling
with honor this thy commandment !'-

Lenin had himself ridiculed and detested all religion as 'the
thousand-year-old enemy of culture and progress', but Stalin now
invoked his name in what amounts to a public prayer. He addressed
the dead man as if he were still there in spirit. But nothing he could
say about the dead Lenin could surpass what was soon being said
about himself, reaching a crescendo of adulation on his seventieth
birthday in 1949. And one thing apparent from all that was said is
that deification actually lessens the power of the person deified. This
was true of the god-kings of Egypt and it remains true to-day. The
deified king is imprisoned by his own legend, restricted by the ritual
of his own cult. The other thing apparent is that the king is deified
by his subjects' wish, not by his own. Lenin would hardly have
accepted worship in his lifetime but he was powerless to save his dead
body from the adoration of the naturally religious. As for Stalin, he
accepted his role with something like complacence. Deification begins
with good publicity.

. . . The same heroic pictures of Stalin appeared in Moscow, Prague,
and Peiping. Always the image of the Leader was sublimely glorified.
Edgar Snow says he counted Stalin's name fifty-seven times in one
four-page issue of a Moscow daily even at the height of the paper
shortage in World War IL In 1950, with paper more plentiful, one issue
oi Pravda mentioned Stalin 91 times on the front page alone; 35 times
as Josef Vissarinovich Stalin; 33 times as Comrade Stalin; 10 times as
Great Leader; 7 times as Dear and Beloved Stalin: and 6 times as Great
Stalin. The Yugoslav newspaper which did this bit of research into the

> S. and B. Webb. op. cit. p. 438.

' Communism, Democracy and Catholic Power. Paul Blanshard. London, 1952. p. 70.

164 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

processes of deification also recorded the fact that Stalin is commonly
described elsewhere in the Soviet press as Great Leader of Mankind;
Great Chief of All Workers; Protagonist of Our Victories; and Faith-
ful Fighter for the Cause of Peace. ^

Stalin's fiftieth birthday in 1929 called forth a series of epithets
comparable with those applied to earlier Asian kings (see p. 135).
Among these may be quoted the following: The greatest military
leader of all times and nations, Lenin's Perpetuator in Creating the
Theory of the Construction of Socialism, The Theoretician and
Leader of the Fight for Peace and Brotherhood among the Peoples,
the Military Genius of our Time, Mirrored in the Literature of the
Peoples of the World, Teacher and Inspired Leader of the World
Proletariat, Coryphaeus of World Science, Theoretician and Initiator
of the Transformation of Nature in the U.S.S.R., the People's
Happiness, Brilliant thinker and scholar.

Paul Blanshard has also been at pains to collect certain other
literary references to Stalin which are as significant in their own way.

Father! What could be nearer and dearer than that name?

Multiform is the all-compassing power of Stalin's genius. Not a single
field of the creative endeavors of the Soviet people but has been
illumined by the rays of his intellect which has pointed the way to the
new summit of achievement.

The shoots of all that is new, progressive, beautiful and exalted in our
life reach out to Stalin as to the sun. Stalin inspires our people and
gives them wings. Stalin's words, Stalin's kindness and solicitude are a
source of life-giving strength to millions.'^

He quotes a poem written by Mikhail Isakovsky which reads, as
translated: —

He has brought us strength and glory

And youth for ages to come.

The flush of a beautiful dawning

Across our heaven is flung.

So let us lift up our voices

To him who is most beloved.

A song to the sun and to justice,

A song that to Stalin is sung.^

Another poem reads: —

O Great Stalin, O leader of the peoples.
Thou who broughtest man to birth,
Thou who purifiest the earth.
Thou who makest bloom the spring,

> Blanshard. op. cit. p. 71.
= Ibid. p. 73.
^ Ibid. p. 74.

THE THEOCRACY OF COMMUNISM 165

Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords,
Thou splendor of my spring, O Thou
Sun reflected of millions of hearts.^

After reading or chanting such poems as these, the next and logical
step for the communist was to make pilgrimage to the Kremlin and walk
where Stalin has trod. 'Let us fall on our knees and kiss those holy
footprints!'^

Hysteria apart, there is great significance in the themes which
underlie these outpourings. The important words are Father, Sun,
Rays, life-giving strength, spring; these and the various references to
fertility. When words like these are used we are fairly back in the
world of Pharaoh, Osiris and the Golden Bough.

The implications of this godhead are immediate. A certain stability
has been gained but the actual king-priest is crippled and mummified.
He cannot take any active part in war, partly because the people will
not let him (see page 36) and partly because he dare not risk the
consequences. What if a reverse follows his visit to the scene of
operations? What if he is made to look like an amateur beside some
general? What if he trips over some wire and falls into a shell-hole?
No, the battlefield is ruled out for the Military Genius of our Time.
So long as he stays at home, defeats can be blamed on the generals in
the field, who have been disobedient or (more probably) treacherous.
But most other activities are ruled out for the same sort of reason. He
dare not mount a horse in case he should fall off. He dare not shoot
in case he should miss. He dare not paint a picture in case someone
else's should seem better. He dare not visit another country in case
he should be made to seem less important than its ruler. He dare
play no game in case he should lose. There is scarcely anything he can
do except work behind closed doors, preside over councils, execute
any possible rival, appear dramatically on infrequent state occasions,
make oracular speeches and wait for the embalming and the glass
case which is the final fate of a god. In a Theocracy, as the King
becomes mummified, it is the priests who tend to rule.

It would be possible to quote from a thousand books in praise of
Communism. They should be classified, however, as theology rather
than as political thought. For just as St. Augustine's theory rests on
the assumption that Jesus is the Son of God, from which all else
follows, so Marxist theory rests on the assumption that Karl Marx is
God, Lenin his prophet and the current Ruler his infallible inter-
preter. Granted these axioms, there is room to discuss how Lenin
would have solved a particular problem, or even what Marx meant in
some passage more than usually obscure. But discussion on these lines

1 Ibid. p. 74.
^ Ibid. p. 75.

166 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

is uninteresting to those who deny the axioms upon which all else
depends. Those, however, to whom the Marxist axioms are least
acceptable must consider that Communism, as a religion, has at
least provided an answer to the practical problem of ruling China.
There are many, no doubt, who would prefer to see Russia and
China ruled on very different lines. These should recall that a Russia
ruled in western democratic fashion would not be Russia. It would
fall into as many fragments as did Europe when the Roman Empire
collapsed. Such a disintegration would be a relief to many other
peoples but we cannot expect the Russians to welcome it. They
would be vulnerable to external dangers of which they have had
considerable experience.

While it would be rash to assert that Russia, within its present
boundaries and with its present peoples, could not be governed except
theocratically, it is at least fair to say that no previous example exists
of such an area being governed in any other way. Nor has the theo-
cratic element been absent from governments with a far simpler
problem to solve. The New England Puritans, a minority of 'Saints'
among a greater number of 'strangers', had all the deep convictions,
all the austerity, all the devotion and all the intolerance of the modern
communist. They left a permanent influence on America and even
upon people to whom their virtues now seem least attractive. It would
surelybe wrong to deny that there is anything of value in the idea of a
chosen minority undergoing an arduous training, assuming special
and onerous responsibilities, foregoing any material reward and
devoting their lives to a chosen faith. Would it not be equally wrong
to question the right of the majority to accept the leadership of these
few? For there is little evidence to show that the majority in Russia is
averse to being led. There are democrats who will assert the infalli-
bility of the people but only so long as it is democracy that the people
choose. There is much in this attitude of the very intolerance which
the democrat is eager to condemn in others. That the Russians and
Chinese will evolve in time a system of government different from the
type they now regard as orthodox is tolerably certain. That it will
resemble that of Britain or the United States is most improbable. It
would be odd indeed if the same answer were to prove correct for
problems in their nature so entirely different.

PART III

Democracy

CHAPTER XIII

The Origins of Democracy

IN commenting upon the course of history, St. Augustine is shrewd
enough to suggest (as did Sallust before him) that the Athenians
exceeded other people more in their publicity than in their deeds. ^
Most subsequent scholars have been more credulous, one result being
a surprisingly widespread belief that the Athenians were the inventors
of democracy. That they were nothing of the kind is tolerably clear.
What we owe to the Athenians is not the thing itself or even its name
but the earliest detailed account of how a democracy came into being,
flourished and collapsed. Of the Indian democracies, which were
probably older, we have all too little precise information. There is,
however, a sense in which many people have had a measure of
democracy in their village life. Of China it has been said: —

The family, the clan, the guild and the unorganised gentry play the
leading part in rural and urban self-government; but . . . there is an
endless variety of groups and associations organised on a free and
voluntary basis for an endless variety of social ends and purposes
which make China a vast self-governed and law-abiding society,
costing practically nothing to maintain.-

There was likewise a great measure of democratic activity in
ancient India, considerable powers being left to families, clans,
village communities and guilds. The Russians also had their mir or
village community, their artel or crat^t guild; the former being an
assembly of the peasants, the latter of workers in the towns. The
Anglo-Saxon folk-moot had its parallel in Vedic India. ^ It would be
difficult, therefore, to decide in what country democracy first
appeared. Nor would it be much easier to find the oldest republic.
The choice would lie perhaps between various states of northern
India. These were presumably monarchies at an earlier period, as
some were to remain, but some were republican from about 500 B.C.
or even earlier. One people, the Lichchhavis, with their capital at
Vaisali, were republicans before the time of Cleisthenes and perhaps

' The City of God. John Healey. Trans. Reprinted, London, 1931. Chap. II. Book
XIV.

^ Democracies of the East. R. Mukerjee. London, 1923.

' Indian culture through the ages. S. V. Venkateswara. London, 1932. In two vols.
Vol. II. Puh/lc Life and Political Institutions, p. 24.

168

THE ORIGINS OF DEMOCRACY 169

even earlier than Draco.' They were ruled, it is said, by an assembly
numbering 7,707. These enfranchised citizens may have been only
about one in twenty of the total population but the 20,000 voters of
Athens were only perhaps one in eighteen. The honour and support
which the Lichchhavis gave to their greatest contemporary, Gautama
(or the Buddha), contrasts favourably, one might add, with the hem-
lock which the Athenians prescribed for Socrates. And if the Lichch-
havis had their untouchables, the Athenians had their slaves. There
were other republics in the Punjab and the Indus valley, especially
between 500 B.C. and a.d. 400. They offered, some of them, a stout
resistance to Alexander's army. There is even mention of three
republics forming a federation in the vicinity of Delhi." There was
nothing comparable to this in southern India, it appears, but there
the local government among the Tamils was more highly developed
and on even more democratic lines, with a public assembly electing
the village council.

While it might prove impossible to decide when and where democ-
racy first appeared, it is somewhat easier to discover how. For such
facts as are known point clearly to its being normally a development
of aristocracy. We learn, for example, that all the voters of Vaisali
were called 'Raja' just as all modern British taxpayers are addressed
by the Board of Inland Revenue as 'Esquire'. The enfranchised
Lichchhavis recognised, in fact, no class distinction among them-
selves 'everyone thinking that he was the Raja'."' it was that same
equality and voting procedure which was copied by the Buddhist
monasteries, and it is at least an interesting speculation to wonder
whether some of the same ideas passed via western monasticism into
modern democratic practice. Whatever the truth may be about that,
it is evidently the tendency for an aristocracy to lose its powers by
diffusion and dilution. The process is essentially biological, closely
resembling the earlier process by which monarchy itself declines, if
the essence of aristocracy is noble descent, all children of noble
parentage are equally what the Indians would call Kshalriyas or
warriors. They must become more numerous in each generation. Nor
can they all be wealthy. In time, moreover, they cannot all even be
soldiers. The Kshalriyas, for example, of the Indian republics 'fol-
lowed trade and commerce' as well as arms.^ Once this stage has been
reached, democracy is in sight. This process is termed 'timocracy'
by Plato. ^

The process of diffusion, as noble blood becomes more common, is

' Hindu Civilization. R. K. Mookerji. Bombay 1950. pp. 203-207.

^ State and Government in Ancient India. A. S. Altekar. Benares, 1949. pp. 78-79.

' R. K. Mookerji. op. cit. p. 205.

" Altekar. op. cit. p. 75.

' Greek Political Theory. Sir Ernest Barker. 4th ed. London, 1951. pp. 251-2.

170 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

matched by the simultaneous process of dilution; a process which the
Indian caste system was carefully designed to prevent. In lands with
a less rigid system of class distinction, it was always difficult, in
practice, to exclude from the upper class a growing number of the
skilled, the able or the dangerous. Knightly rank has always been won
on the battlefield and can scarcely be denied to the merchant whose
travels may bring him into comparable peril. And if the merchant
wears the sword, the lawyer sent on embassy deserves no less. But no
trader or professional man can deny a measure of respect to his
customers or clients. He who sells can claim no superiority over those
who buy. When in doubt, he will prefer to call the stranger 'Sir' or
'Lord'. That his customers are all 'ladies and gentlemen' is the proof
in fact of his success. There is thus a tendency in most languages for
the word 'gentleman' to become meaningless, being applied eventually
to all above the status of peasant, or to all perhaps not actually slaves.
The assumption of 'gentle' rank by so large a number is not in-
consistent with the claim by a minority to a still higher status. But the
claim becomes difficult to sustain as against others whose birth,
education, military prowess and wealth is not perceptibly inferior.
Such a claim, if persisted in, may end in middle-class revolt. If, on the
other hand, the claim is tacitly dropped, a democratic equality has
been practically achieved. Historically, the tendency has been for the
privileged class to split, the more snobbish provoking by their conduct
a revolt with which the less snobbish are openly sympathetic (not
without advantage to themselves). The French Revolution of 1789
provides us with a classic example of this process. Had none of the
aristocrats believed in aristocracy the rising would never have begun.
Had they all believed in aristocracy, it might have been easily sup-
pressed. As it was, some were unpopular, more were undecided and
a few were openly on the side of the unprivileged. The same situation
existed in Britain during the period 1900-1920. The aristocracy was
too uncertain of itself to make any spectacular stand against the
quiet revolution which was taking place. Many sought to escape the
unpopularity which a few had earned. There emerged the Mirabeau
type, the Etonian socialist. None dared uphold the principle of
aristocracy as such save in the most evasive term. The collapse of
aristocracy was further hastened by two other factors which may well
have been important at similar periods of transition in the past. One
factor was the failure to breed, common among the politically un-
certain. The other was the incidence of war casualties, falling most
heavily upon the limited class from which future leaders might other-
wise have been drawn. The British aristocracy went down before the
revolution of 1 9 1 4- 1 8, victims of a conflict in which generals lost their
reputation while subalterns lost their lives. The survivors of a war in

THE ORIGINS OF DEMOCRACY 171

which the dangers had been experienced by all alike could do nothing
but talk about the virtues of democracy. Death duties finished what
machine guns had begun.

To study in any detail the process by which aristocracy turns into
democracy, we must turn first to Athens and Rome. And one feature
of European democracy, as seen in classical times and as contrasting
with the democracies of the East, is the emergence of the individual.
The Oriental attitude to this phenomenon has been well expressed
by Professor Radhakamal Mukerjee: —

The realisation of right had been from the first a social function; but
its enforcement was incumbent on the unit groups of individuals
(families, clans, tribes, village communities or guilds bound together
by friendship). The acquisition by the State of supreme and unlimited
power and jurisdiction over society and its economic, social and cul-
tural interests has been a gradual but inevitable development in the
West; and this apotheosis of the State has given a wrong trend to
civilisation. In China and India, the rules of conduct evolved by the
unit groups of individuals still constitute the communal code, while
the rules of morality form a second code, set above the communal law
and embodying a larger aggregate of duties. The two together embrace
the whole field of life; and much that falls to State or government in
the West to further public welfare by means of the creation and
administration of law is left to myriad local groups and assemblies in
the communalistic polity. Unregulated individualism and absolute
State authority go together. . . .^

What was novel, in fact, about the republic of Athens was not its
democracy as such but its emphasis on the individual rather than on
the group. Once the individual citizen becomes the imit, divorced
from his clan or trade guild or village, he is immeasurably weakened
in his relationship with the State. And the State is correspondingly
strengthened as group loyalties disappear.

Athens was ruled at first, like other States, by a god-descended
king. But whereas at Rome the king was dethroned by an aristocratic
revolution, at Athens the monarchy was gradually and quietly re-
placed-. First we hear of the king's successor being chosen from among
members of the royal family. Next we hear of a General and a Judge
(both of royal blood) appointed to assist the king. Then the office of
judge or Archon is thrown open to men of noble family (c. 725 B.C.),
the period of office being reduced from ten years to one. The appear-
ance of the Council of Nine, and the Areopogus or Council of the
'Eupatridae', marks the aristocratic control which existed during the
later days of the monarchy. By 683 B.C. Athens was an aristocratic
republic.

' Democracies of the East. R. Mukerjee. London, 1923. pp. 78-79.

- The City-State of the Greeks and Romans. W. Warde- Fowler. Ed. of 1931.

172 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Thus the constitutional frame in which the city-state was built was
aristocracy. With settled life personal leadership had given place to the
steady influence of a class. Overseas this class was sometimes the
original settlers who kept political power in their own hands. In Greece
proper long-established wealth or pride of birth, displayed in the keep-
ing of horses or the membership of aristocratic clans, had shown itself
too in the service of the state. As the king had dwindled, so the old
assembly of freemen disappeared or counted for little. The state was
the possession of those who had the freedom to serve it. . . .^

But aristocracy had no very firm basis among the Greeks. It had no
strong religious sanction, the Greeks not being, by Eastern standards,
a very religious people. It had no monopoly of learning, for the
Greeks, taking their civilisation from Asia (and being the first Euro-
pean people to experience it), had adopted the simple phonetic
alphabet of the Phoenicians. It had no monopoly of wealth, for the
Greeks were seafarers and traders, living in a rather poor land. It had
no basis in luxury for the Greek tastes were simple; nor in leisure, for
most Greeks seem to have had that. It had, above all, no basis in
horsemanship for horses, though used, played a relatively small part
in Greek life. Greece (apart from Thessaly) had neither the pasture
on which horses could graze nor the terrain in which cavalry could
operate. It has been pointed out, moreover, that the horses which
are represented in the Parthenon frieze are little larger than ponies.
No iron shoes were used before the second century B.C. and Greece
is a stony land. Unshod, without saddle or stirrups, the horses of the
breed represented in these carvings could have been of no use in the
charge.- Aristotle himself remarks that the upper class in Thessaly
could subdue the rabble. That this was untrue in Athens is one reason
why the aristocratic phase there was relatively brief. It lasted, in fact,
from about 750 B.C. until about 600 B.C. The framework of democracy,
created by Solon (Archon in 594 B.C.) and perfected by Cleisthenes
(c. 525 B.C.), lasted until about 338 B.C.

The essential point in the reforms of Solon and Cleisthenes was the
abolition of the clans. Democracy in the Greek sense was incom-
patible with communal organisation or with the continued influence
of the areopogus.^ The constitution, after the citizens had been re-
organised into ten new 'demes' or townships of non-tribal character,
can be regarded as a bold experiment in direct and representative
democracy. By the time of Pericles, sovereignty lay in the Ecclesia,
the assembly of free citizens of military age, numbering perhaps
20,000 in theory, paid for their attendance, and meeting at least forty

' The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. III. p. 700. (Chapter XXVI, Professor F. E.
Adcock).

- The Economics of Ancient Greece. H. Michell. Cambridge, 1940.

' Its powers were mostly abolished in 462 b.c. See The Greek Citv and its Institutions.
G. Glotz. London, 1950. p. 125.

THE ORIGINS OF DEMOCRACY 173

times a year.^ Executive power was delegated, however, to the Council
of Five Hundred elected annually by the Ecclesia, meeting every five
days and sitting fifty at a time. This Council delegated much of its
power in turn to Committees. These Committees dealt with Justice,
War, Finance, Education, Religion, Dockyards and Accounts.
Members of the more important Committees (War, Finance etc.)
were elected from the Council in office. Those serving on the less
important Committees were chosen by lot. Total committee member-
ship came to 1,200-1,400 all told, so that everyone would have his
turn in office. Courts of Law were equally democratic in character,
each comprising 500 members of the Ecclesia sitting as a kind of jury .'-

The citizens with full political rights thus numbered 20,000 at
most out of a total population of over 320,000. No voting rights were
accorded to women, minors,' aliens or slaves. Nor would such a
system have been even possible without slavery, to provide the
citizens with leisure, or tribute (drawn from the subject cities of the
Athenian League) to provide the voters with their pay. But when all
these limitations have been conceded, it remains true that it was as
real a democracy as has ever, perhaps, existed. It was government by
the many and involved the active and direct participation of as many
people as was practicable. More than that, the defects of Athenian
democracy were democratic defects, arising not from the restriction
of the suffrage but from its breadth. There is every reason, in fact, for
concluding that a wider franchise would have made them not better
but worse.

What were these defects? The first was inherent in a system which
gave equal political rights to the rich and the poor. It is true that the
Athenian 'poor' excluded most of those whom we should describe as
the working class; for these were slaves. But there were citizens quite
poor enough to envy the wealth of the others. Nor did their com-
parative poverty make them less politically active in a state where
political service was paid. Their natural instinct was to tax or fine the
rich out of existence. The reaction of the more prosperous was to
form societies for mutual protection and political reform. These
activities were, or could be regarded as treasonable, and the result
was a series of prosecutions of the wealthy between 410 and 405 B.C.
Those not actually prosecuted were blackmailed with the threat of
prosecution. Many, like Euripides and Agathon, ffed to Macedonia.

' Actual attendance was very much less. At the only division for which we have
exact figures, 3,616 men voted. There may have been 5,000-6,000 present on more
important occasions. See A. Zimmern, The Greek Commonwealth. Oxford. Ed. of 1952.
p. 169.

^ See Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. V, p. 98 et seq. (Chap. IV) and A. Zimmern,
op. cit. p. 175.

' Voters had to be over 20 years of age, making their possible number about 20,000.
But by the end of the Peloponnesian War it was practically impossible to collect even
5,000. See Zimmern, op. cit. p. 169.

174 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Alcibiades fled to Thrace. The Athenian Courts of Law proved an
ideal mechanism for pursuing these feuds as the people were sitting
in judgment on what might be their own cause; the confiscation of
property. The active treason of the wealthy was an important factor
in the defeat of Athens in 405 B.C.

The second major defect lay in the division of the spoils. Public
funds were spent in the payment of an enormous civil service, with
large numbers of people thus taken from productive work. The
precise statistics here are in dispute and it is a question whether a
half or merely a third of the citizens were in public employment.
There seem, at any rate, to have been 20,000 so employed in the fifth
century B.C. This total admittedly included 6,000 soldiers and sailors;
and the 6,000 paid jurors might of course be regarded as old-age
pensioners or unemployed. Still, with all allowances made, the officials
were fairly numerous. They included some 2,850 policemen, 700
home civil servants, perhaps 300 in the colonial service,^ 500 members
of Council and over 3,000 subordinate officials, benefactors, retired
athletes and orphans. There are many, no doubt, who would regard
full employment, in this sense, as a merit rather than a defect. It was
essentially dependent, however, on a revenue from overseas acquired
by anything but democratic means. This revenue apart, it was simply
a living on capital, a fundamentally unstable process. Public servants
could not, of course, be dismissed as redundant, they and their
friends being voters.

The third major defect lay in external aff'airs. Athens could not have
lasted for long in any case after the rise of Macedonia but it remains
roughly true to say that the Athenians were most successful between
466 and 428 B.C. when ruled, in practice, by Pericles, and far less
successful during later periods of more typically democratic rule.
Thucydides is emphatic about this:

Pericles, powerful from dignity of character as well as from wisdom,
and conspicuously above the least tinge of corruption, held back the
people with a free hand, and was their real leader instead of being led
by them. For not being a seeker of power from unworthy sources, he
did not speak with any view to present favour, but had sufficient sense
of dignity to contradict them on occasion, even braving their dis-
pleasure. . . . But those who succeeded after his death, being more
equal one with another, and each of them desiring pre-eminence over
the rest, adopted the diff"erent course of courting the favour of the
people and sacrificing to that object even important state-interests."

' These were not 'career' civil servants but elected amateur officials, serving for a
limited period of office. The number given does not include the slaves in public owner-
ship who formed the more permanent element in the establishment; nor the Scythian
archers who were employed to keep order.

^ Thiicvclicks II, 65 quoted in A History of Greece by G. Grote in ten volumes.
London," 1888. Vol. V. p. 95.

THE ORIGINS OF DEMOCRACY 175

What is particularly interesting is that the Athenian failures and
mistakes were in precisely the fields of activity in which later democ-
racies have also tended to fail; that is to say, in colonial policy,
foreign policy and war.

There is, of course, a basic anomaly in a democratic state having
colonies at all. The Athenian legend had been built up round the
story of Greek resistance to Persian imperialism. The obvious and
expected fate of the Greek cities was to be conquered severally by the
nearest centralised monarchy of any size; and indeed this eventually
happened. During their period, however, of independence, the
Athenians based their reputation upon the epic stories of Marathon
and Salamis. The Athenian Empire began as an alliance of free cities
against the threat of imperialism. From about 472 B.C. its character
began to change and in 454 B.C. the treasury of the federation was
removed from Delos to Athens. Throughout the period, in fact, of
aristocratic leadership from 466 to 428 B.C., the allied cities gradually
became colonial territories; subject to Athens, their champion against
Persia. Under aristocratic rule, the Athenians might justify their own
imperialism or at least find excuses for it. The paternal authority they
had accepted for themselves they might logically recommend to
others. But when, from about 429 B.C., their rule became more purely
democratic — a rule of the people, for the people and by the people —
no possible excuse remained for denying to others the complete
freedom they claimed for themselves. Of the ethics of the situation the
Athenians were fully aware, but they would not forego the advantages
of their imperial position. More than that, they enforced their rule
with a cynical ferocity which should always be remembered in dis-
cussing the merits of the Athenian experiment.

Two examples of Athenian imperialism are particularly worthy of
note, both dating from the period immediately following the death of
Pericles. It was in 428 e.c. that news came to Athens of the impending
desertion of the tributary city of Mitylene — the rulers of which state
desired the independence which they in turn denied to Antissa,
Eresus and Pyrrha. The Athenians blockaded and besieged Mitylene
and finally brought about its surrender. There followed that astonish-
ing debate in which Cleon, the leather-seller, procured a popular
decision to massacre the entire Mytalenaean population of military
age. Orders were sent to carry out this decree but the debate was
resumed on the following day. Defending the decision taken against
a plea for mercy put forward by Diodotus, Cleon called for justice:

. . . warning the assembly that the imperial necessities of Athens
essentially required the constant maintenance of a sentiment of fear in
the minds of unwilling subjects, and that they must prepare to see their
empire pass away if they suflFered themselves to be guided either by

176 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

compassion for those who, if victors, would have no compassion on
them — or by unreasonable moderation towards those who would
neither feel nor requite it — or by the mere impression of seductive
discourses.^

On this occasion the moderate party won, another ship being sent
to overtake the first, bearing a cancellation of the previous decree.
But even counsels of moderation involved killing over a thousand
prisoners in cold blood — instead of the six thousand as at first decided
upon. The cruelty involved is less striking, perhaps, than the argu-
ment of political expediency put forward to justify it.

An example made of Mytilene, the Athenians then discovered,
with Cleon's help, that they could themselves avoid war-taxes simply
by doubling the amount of the tribute payable under treaty by the
subject cities. This increase was announced in 425, a demand being
also sent to the neutral island of Melos, the inhabitants of which had
never entered the Athenian Empire at all. They refused to pay but it
was not until 416 B.C. that the Athenians had the forces to spare with
which to coerce them. In that year an expedition was sent, bearing a
demand for the arrears. The Athenian envoys are said by Thucydides
to have been perfectly candid about their motives.

We shall not trouble you with specious pretences, either of how we
have a right to our Empire because we overthrew the Persians, or are
now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us. You
know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question
between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the
weak suffer what they must.-

The men of Melos were not prepared to submit. They told the
Athenians that the gods would favour the cause of the just. To this
the men of Athens replied as candidly as before:

When you speak of the favour of the gods we may as fairly hope for
that as you, neither our pretensions nor our conduct being in any way
contrary to what men believe of the gods, or practise among them-
selves. Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary
law of their nature they rule wherever they can. It is not as if we were
the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made. We found it in
the world before us, and shall leave it in the world after us; all we do is
to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the
same power as we have, would do the same as we do. Thus, so far as
the gods are concerned, we have no fear at all.^

Melos finally surrendered after a siege lasting some months. The
Athenians put to death all the grown men and sold all the women

' Grote. op. cit. pp. 169-172.

- The Greek Commonwealth. A Zimmern. Oxford, 1952. p. 441.

^ Zimmern. op. cit. pp. 442-443.

THE ORIGINS OF DEMOCRACY 177

and children as slaves. Six months later an Athenian fleet and army
was sent to conquer Sicily and failed disastrously. By 412 B.C. most
of the Athenian Empire was in revolt.

In foreign policy the Athenians of this same period committed at
least one outstanding crime and one outstanding blunder. At the
time of the battle of Marathon the state of Athens had had as its sole
ally the city of Plataea. When this was besieged by the Peloponnesians,
the men of Plataea sent to Athens for help. Assistance was promised in
accordance with the existing and old-standing alliance but none was
sent. Plataea held out for two years but had then to surrender.
What remained of the garrison amounted to 225 men, and these
were all put to death. ^ Plataea was only thirty miles from Athens
and could have been relieved without much difficulty. But there
seemed to be no advantage to be gained by doing so. And the forces
which might have saved Plataea in 427 b.c. were actually deployed
against Mytilene. Athenian friendship was even more dangerous than
Athenian hostility. But the betrayal of Plataea was matched in folly,
though not in crime, by the rejection of the Spartan offer of peace in
425 B.C. It was made at a moment when the Athenians were in a strong
position. The Spartan envoys were allowed to address the Athenian
Assembly and then withdrew. Persuaded by Cleon, the people
decided upon impossibly harsh terms. These were communicated to
the envoys publicly. Nor were they refused. The envoys merely asked
to discuss the terms with commissioners appointed to negotiate.
Cleon then said that this proposal proved the dishonesty of their
intentions. If they had anything to say, let it be said openly before the
assembly. This was agreed with acclamation.

The Lacedaemonians, seeing that whatever concessions they might
be prepared to make in their humiliation it was impossible for them to
speak before the multitude and lose credit with their allies for a
negotiation in which they might after all miscarry, and, on the other
hand, that the Athenians would never grant what they asked for upon
moderate terms, returned home from Athens with their mission un-
fulfilled.2

It should suffice to say that the Athenians were never to have as
favourable an opportunity offered them again.

Lastly, there is the failure in war. Noteworthy in this connection
are two events of differing importance but each significant in its own
way. The first was the attempt to surprise Mitylene. The plan was to
attack the city at the time of a religious festival during which the entire
population would have gone to worship at the temple of Apollo
Maloeis, leaving their walls deserted. But this plan had to be dis-

' Grote. op. cit. pp. 179-184. Vol. V.
^ Zimmern. op. cit. pp. 438-439.

178 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

cussed in the public assembly, allowing ample time for information
to reach the Mitylenaeans, who promptly cancelled the festival and
prepared to defend themselves. The second event was the surprising
result of the debate in which, following the dismissal of the Spartan
envoys, the politician Cleon urged the vigorous prosecution of the
war. In doing so he said or implied that he would have done better
than the generals were doing. He was instantly challenged to take the
command himself. While his political opponents joined in the cry,
expecting a failure which would ruin him, his friends took up the
challenge on his behalf and urged him to try his hand.

Friends as well as enemies thus concurred to impose upon Cleon a
compulsion not to be eluded. Of all the parties here concerned, those
whose conduct is the most unpardonably disgraceful are Nicias and
his oligarchal supporters, who force a political enemy into the supreme
command against his own strenuous protest, persuaded that he will
fail, so as to compromise the .lives of many soldiers, and the destinies
of the state on an important emergency, but satisfying themselves with
the idea that they shall bring him to disgrace and ruin.^

In point of fact, Cleon won and returned to Athens in triumph. It
was a success more fatal, however, than any defeat could have been,
for it encouraged him to assume the command again when the
situation was less favourable and so led to the disaster at Amphipolis,
largely attributable to Cleon's inexperience and panic.

What is most significant about this affair is not the defeat of Athens
but the extent to which its internal politics could jeopardise its
security. When party feeling runs so high that a commander comes to
be appointed through the influence of those who hope for his defeat,
the prospects of the campaign are poor indeed. It is true that the
decline of the Athenian Empire was due to many factors unconnected
with the Athenian form of government. Neither Lycurgus nor
Demetrius of Phalerum could have restored Athenian hegemony even
had they tried. But the fact remains that the Athenian experiment
revealed where democracy is likely to fail. It proved that the voters of
an imperialist state may pay little heed to the welfare of their subject
peoples. It tended to prove that the voters may prove unmindful of
any obligations or aUiances concluded by their predecessors but
since found to be inconvenient. It also seemed to suggest that the
party struggles within a democratic state may confuse its mihtary
effort. It would have been rash to conclude then as it would be to
agree now that every democratic state is bound to commit exactly
these mistakes. Still less should we forget that states ruled on quite
opposite principles have come to grief for different reasons — or even
for the same reasons. But we may be justified in thinking that these

' Grote. op. cit. \o\. V. p. 256.

THE ORIGINS OF DEMOCRACY 179

are the errors to which a democracy is most exposed. They may be
avoided perhaps but we need at least to know that they are there.

The Athenian experiment in democracy is the more worthy of
study in that its results were confirmed, to some extent, in the
histories of the other Greek City States; cities about which less is
known. The process by which aristocracy turns into democracy was
repeated in Corinth, Thourioi, Naxos and Cyrene.^ The struggle, the
class war, between the more and the less prosperous citizens was at
least a common feature in these other cities. At Miletus in 630 B.C.
there were two parties, called respectively 'The Wealthy' and 'The
Handworkers'." At Cyrene five hundred of the wealthy were executed
in the course of the revolution of 401 B.C. Such revolutions were fairly
common, although by no means invariable, and usually (not always)
led to a counter-revolution at some later date. It was the resulting
variety in forms of rule which afforded the Greek theorists their
opportunity for comparison — a better opportunity perhaps than any
thinker has had since. Nor was it wasted. The scholars of the Lyceum
in Athens were able to collect and compare the constitutions of a
hundred and fifty-eight cities. They had seen many democracies in
their rise, their fulfilment, their decay and their collapse. They felt
more ready to generalise than do modern theorists whose experience
is so much less. And what do they conclude?

A democracy then, as I imagine, arises when the poor, prevailing
over the rich, kill some and banish others, and share the places in the
republic and the magistracies equally among the remainder. . . .^

Plato goes on to describe how democracy may turn into anarchy,
the magistrates losing their authority over the people and the elders
losing their authority over the young.

Just as if ... a father should accustom himself to resemble a child
and to be afraid of his sons, and the son . . . neither to revere nor to
stand in awe of his parents, that so indeed he may be free. . . . The
teacher in such a city fears and flatters the scholars and the scholars
despise their teachers. . . . And in general the youth resemble the more
advanced in years, and rival it with them both in words and deeds: and
the old men sitting down with the young, are full of merriment and
pleasantry, mimicking the youth, that they may not appear to be
morose and despotic.

Plato continues from there to show how employers lose control of
their slaves and husbands of their wives until finally even the
domestic animals claim their independence.

1 Greek City-Stales. Kathleen Freeman. London, 1950.

' K. Freeman, op. cit. p. 140.

^ The Republic of Plato. Trans, by H. Spans. Everyman, 1927. (Eighth Book), p. 270.

180 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

. . . For readily even the puppies, according to the proverb, resemble
their mistresses; and the horses and asses are accustomed to go freely
and gracefully, marching up against any one they meet on the road
unless he give way. . . .^

Aristotle generalises as boldly from an even wider experience.

Liberty, he says, is the first principle of democracy. 'The results of

liberty are that the numerical majority is supreme, and that each man

lives as he likes. '^ Democracy, he realises, will lead to a demand that

all should have equal possessions as well as equal rights (Book II).

For the real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty

and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they

be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is a

democracy. . . ^

He returns to the theme in Book VI :

. . . Every citizen, it is said, must have equality, and therefore in a
democracy the poor have more power than the rich, because there are
more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.*

What the will of the majority is likely to be, in at least one respect,
Aristotle very well knows: \

. . . Democrats say that justice is that to which the majority agree ... if
justice is the will of the majority . . . they will unjustly confiscate the
property of the wealthy minority.^

Some would deny that such a confiscation is unjust. But the rights
and wrongs are not to our present purpose. What is significant is that
Aristotle, having carefully collated the political experience of a wide
variety of Greek City States, is able to assure us that Athens was not
exceptional. Democracy was tried repeatedly, in different places and
for differing periods of time, and if any one conclusion can be reached
from a study of the results it is that democracy will lead, sooner or
later, to socialism.

■ Plato, op. cit. p. 278.

^ Aristotle's Politics. Trans, by Benjamin Jowett. Oxford, 1931. Analysis, p. 19.

' Aristotle, op. cit. Book III. p. 116.

^ Ibid. p. 239.

"Ibid. p. 241.

CHAPTER XIV

Democracy at Rome

THE democratic phase in Roman history is so brief that a cursory
treatment of Roman pohtical institutions is apt to give the
impression that Rome passed directly from aristocracy to Dictator-
ship and Empire. This is not quite true. Rome passed through the
same stages as Athens had done but with a different emphasis in point
of time. Rome presented a far bigger problem than Athens had ever
done; bigger in area and in population. So that there could be far less
pretence of collecting a representative gathering of the people. Nor,
had this been done, would it have been easy for any one speaker to
address them. Nevertheless, the Roman constitution was basically
that of a Greek city, with democratic assemblies playing a theo-
retically important part. When the Roman aristocracy began to lose
grip, the attempt to make Rome a democracy was facilitated by the
existence of institutions and laws which had only to be revived.

The aristocratic governance of Rome rested, in its later period,
upon the concrete success of the second Punic War. But the two
parties, the exclusive and the excluded, were in existence and the
prestige of the former tended to decline, more especially during the
third Macedonian war. It could be argued that the ruling class had
been corrupted by wealth.

Opposed to the rule of such an oligarchy were many of the dispos-
sessed, who longed for economic security; many of the plain citizens,
who longed for an efficient and civil government; the more ambitious
members of the rising Equestrian Order, who longed for political
power; and such aristocrats as had fallen on evil times, or were for
some reason or other at variance with those in power, and longed for
dignitas.

When their power and the title to it were challenged, the ruling
oligarchy, perhaps with complacent self-praise, or in an attempt to give
their social and political supremacy an air of moral superiority, were
pleased to consider and call themselves Optimates. . . }

Leader of the Populares, as the opposition party was called, was
Tiberius Gracchus, Tribune in 133 B.C. He tried to revive the practice
of bringing legislation before the popular assembly without submit-

' Libertas as a political idea at Rome during the late Republic and early Prinripate.
Ch. Wirszubski. Cambridge, 1950. p. 39.

181

182 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

ting it to Senate. He succeeded for the moment by rather questionable
means but was killed soon afterwards in a faction fight. The demo-
cratic party, inactive for nine years, was revived by Gaius Gracchus,
a revolutionary intent on avenging his brother's death. Securing
election as Tribune in 124 B.C., he reUed for his power upon the
populace of Rome. Perhaps his most significant piece of legislation
was the Lex Frumentaria under which corn was bought by the State
and sold to the citizens at less than the market price. ^ This first law
of the kind fell short of the Athenian direct payment to voters but led
to further and similar bids for popular favour, ending in the logical
outcome of 58 B.C. when Clodius made the distribution entirely free.
Socialist measures of this kind could be financed only from two
sources; taxation of the wealthy or taxation of the Empire. Gaius
Gracchus chose the latter method. His brother had chosen the former,
passing (or rather reviving) a law which allowed the State to con-
fiscate land owned by individuals in excess of a fixed maximum acre-
age, and redistribute it among the landless. Land had been in fact
confiscated, at a low compensation, under this law. Gaius now
altered the system of taxation in the wealthiest of the Roman provinces,
that of Asia. Hitherto the provincials had paid moderate taxes,
raising them themselves.

This system was now abolished: extensive direct and indirect taxes
were imposed, and the usual method of collecting them through tax-
farmers was adopted as in Sicily and Sardinia with this important
distinction — instead of being put up to auction in the provinces, as was
done in these two cases, so that the contracts were often undertaken
by provincial companies, it was enacted that the taxes of the whole
province should be leased at Rome, so that the provincials themselves
were practically excluded. The general result was that Asia became the
scene of most scandalous extortion. . . . -

The democratic movement thus included some of the main
features of Athenian democracy. Nor was it altogether resisted by
the aristocrats, for these had split, in normal fashion, the Optimates
being opposed when most reactionary by a group of moderates — an
aristocratic party which centred at one time on the younger Scipio.
Weakened by disunity among themselves, the Senators watched the
process by which political sovereignty was transferred from the
Senate to the Comitia. Gracchus had managed to unite against the
aristocracy the wealthier citizens of other than noble birth and the
poor citizens now living, in part, at the public expense. While this
alliance held, the democratic group could continue to rule Rome. It
became the object of the Senatorial party to split the coalition, which

' The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. IX, 1932. pp. 59, 165 and 524.
- A Constitutional and Political History of Rome from the earliest times to the reign
of Domitian. T. M. Taylor. London, 1899. p. 256.

DEMOCRACY AT ROME 183

Livius Drusus did by the simple means of outbidding Gracchus in
generosity at the Treasury's expense. Gracchus failed to secure
re-election in 121 B.C. and was killed in the riots which were now a
feature of these political contests. For a time there was an uneasy
balance of power, accompanied by serious military disaster in
Numidia; a capitulation due at least in part to the absence of the
Consul, Spurius Albinus, in Rome at the time of the elections.
Shortly afterwards a successful general of the Senatorial party was
recalled as a result of democratic pressure. Worse was to follow in
105 B.C. when a costly defeat, with 80,000 casualties, was attributed to
the mutual hostility of two generals, one aristocratic and the other
not. The democratic party reached its peak of success in 100 B.C.
when the popular leader Saturninus was in alliance with the general,
Marius. It must then have seemed inevitable that Rome should
become and for long remain a democracy.

If the establishment of a persistently democratic form of rule
seemed probable then, it would equally seem now, in retrospect, that
all the elements needed were present. The Republican aristocracy
had lost all special claim to respect. The trade expansion which had
followed the Punic Wars and the revenues since drawn from Sicily,
Spain, Macedonia and Africa had opened a vast field for political
corruption. What had been an aristocracy had become an oligarchy,
with direct or indirect financial interests in tax-farming, banking and
contracting. The middle class, the peasant soldiers of an earlier
period, had mostly vanished; partly as a result of war casualties and
partly through the ruin of soldiers exiled by war from their land. The
landless citizens who flocked into Rome formed an idle and demoral-
ised urban population of voters. In 104 B.C. the Tribune Philippus
thus declared that there were not 2,000 landowners in the citizen
body — which then numbered 394,000, mostly proletarians. Mixed
farming had declined, land being devoted more to olives, vineyards
and garden-produce. Food was mostly imported and distributed at
below cost price. The populace was led by professional politicians of
obscure birth and the oligarchs had been compelled to retreat from one
position to another until little remained of their prestige and less of
their effective power.

Why did no fairly permanent democracy result? The main
obstacle to the establishment of a democratic form of government
lay in the mere size of the problem. The Athenians were relatively few
and could make some pretence of assembling a representative body
of citizens to conduct public business on democratic lines. But the
practical difficulty (and doubtful wisdom) of assembling the citizens
of Rome was manifest. The eventual result could only be chaos, as
the more responsible citizens could see for themselves. Even, however,

184 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

if the practical problems were solved, the decisions reached would not
be democratic in any real sense of the word. The vote did not extend
to the rest of Italy, still less to the Roman Empire as a whole. Nor
could it be extended more widely against the opposition of those
already voting. The decisions made would nevertheless affect a vast
and growing territory — countries which the Roman voters had never
seen and could not, perhaps, have even found on the map. There
was far less moral basis for a democracy in Rome than there had been
for democracy in Athens. In the most careful analysis, it did not even
make sense.

The only possible means of establishing anything like a real
democracy would have been to extend citizenship to the empire and
devise some means of representation of the provincial interests at
Rome. As a result of the revolt called 'The Social War', an attempt
was in fact made to extend the franchise. The Lex Julia and Lex
Plantia Papiria (of about 90 B.C.) extended the franchise widely in
Italy but there was little danger of the newly enrolled citizens (who
brought the total to 910,000) appearing in great numbers to exercise
their rights. Nor does it seem that any system of representation was
ever seriously discussed. The practical difficulty then (as now) of
reforming an electoral system is that those actually in power are
usually well satisfied with the process which brought them into office.
Those in opposition are more disposed to be critical but only so long
as they are powerless. So little was done and Rome steadily pro-
gressed towards anarchy, an interesting feature of which was the
debasement of the currency as a means of financing the continuance
of the dole.

From about 99 B.C. there began a reaction against democracy,
supported clearly by a body of moderate opinion. The political
struggle fluctuated but the Consul Sulla was able, with the use of
force, to restore the power of the Senate. In doing so, he had some of
the democratic leaders put to death. He then strengthened the Senate
by the addition of another 300 members and enacted a law under
which no measure could be brought before the Comitia without the
Senate's prior consent. The democratic experiment was almost at an
end. It did not end completely, however, until 82 B.C. when Sulla,
returning to Rome from the East, defeated the democrats at the
Colline Gate — not, however, before they had massacred the leaders
of the Optimates. Sulla, who was extremely able but not personally
ambitious, set about the task of restoring the republic. He was ap-
pointed Dictator and was perhaps the first to hold that office by name
in its modern sense.

The first chapter of Sulla's rule opened with the most awful incident
in the history of Rome. In virtue of his unlimited power he outlawed

DEMOCRACY AT ROME 185

all who had fought under the flag of the Democratic party, except
those who had submitted to him on his return; their lives were for-
feited, their property confiscated and sold, their descendants debarred
from all political preferment. This general proclamation was soon
replaced by a formal list of those to be despatched; it contained
4,700 names. . . .^

The democrats thus eliminated, at least for the time being, Sulla
restored to the Senate all and more than all its previous powers.

The authority and power of the Senate were increased at the cost of
the tribunes and the popular assembly. All the rights it had enjoyed
before the legislation of the Gracchi were now restored to it. To Sulla
it was obvious that the Senate could, and the rabble of Rome could not,
govern a world-wide state. . . .-

What may have been obvious then is less obvious to us now. For a
Senate in which all leaders, on either side, had been killed, and in
which all that remained were in fear of the same fate was not, in
practice, a very effective body of men. Sulla nevertheless relinquished
his dictatorship in 79 B.C., apparently expecting the Republic to take
on a new lease of life. It did not do that and indeed it barely survived
Sulla's death in the following year.

Whatever Sulla's precept may have been, his example had mainly
served to demonstrate with what ease a successful general might
become dictator. Nor did Senate prove able to cope even with a
revival of the democrats. As Heitland says:

The death of Sulla ushers in the final period of revolution, the period
in which the Roman Republic, deprived of its master, proved that it
could not do without one.^

The period from 78 to 59 B.C. saw the rise of new generals under the
uncertain rule of the restored oligarchy. Two events of the greatest
political significance were the Catilinian conspiracy and the election
of Julius Caesar as Pontifex Maximus. The conspiracy of Catiline,
had it succeeded, would have led to a general and virtually anarchist
attack on property, accompanied by a massacre of the wealthy. It
was foiled but in such a way as to reveal the government's essential
weakness. The attempt to rule an Empire through the political mach-
inery of a Greek City State was coming to an end.^ And the election
of Julius Caesar as Pontiff or Chief Priest was a hint of the sort of
rule which was destined to take its place. Only a divine ruler could

' T. M. Taylor, op. cit. p. 295.

^ A History of the Ancient World. M. Rostovtzeff. Vol. II. Trans, by J. D. Duff.
Oxford, 1928. p. 125.

' The Roman Republic. W. E. Heitland. Cambridge, 1923. Vol. III. p. 1.

* See The Roman Revolution. R. Syme. Oxford, 1939. See also The Roman Middle
Class in the Republican Period. H. Hill. Oxford, 1952.

186 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

effectively control the territories wiiich the Republic had conquered.
The Republic, if weakened by its occasional military failures, was
essentially killed by its own military success.

That a successful general should make himself ruler, to the intense
relief of all but the fanatics, was inevitable. The Roman constitution
provided no executive body and no permanent officials. It provided
no administration comparable with that of Egypt, Persia or China.
It lacked, above all, the focus which could be given only by a deified
head. And what is particularly interesting is the early date by which
this last need was perceived by one who was in a posititon to supply
it.

Julius Caesar belonged to a family, to begin with, of divine descent.
He could and did claim Aeneas of Troy as his ancestor, and Aeneas
was the son of Venus. He also claimed a descent from the Alban
kings, and they in turn were descendants of Mars. 'The connection
with Venus was always emphasized more than the less well authen-
ticated descent from Mars\^ Public mention was made of this claim
as early as 68 B.C. Then came his election as Pontiff, as heir therefore
to nearly all the religious functions of the old Roman kings. Familiar
as he was through his military life with Asia, Cilicia and Bithynia, he
knew all about the oriental conception of monarchy. Anything he
did not know about its practical application he learnt later on in
Egypt. Caesar's first Consulship began in 59 B.C. By 44 B.C. he had
been elected Dictator for life. What his political programme would
have been had he lived long enough to fulfil it, we are not to know.
What we do know is the fact of his virtual deification. It centred,
first of all, on the temple of Venus Genetrix — on Venus considered as
mother of the Julian house. This was built in the Forum and Caesar's
statue was erected in front of it. Nor was this all. A further statue of
him in the temple of Quirinus was set up in 45 B.C. with the inscrip-
tion 'To the unconquered god'. In the following year he was given the
title of 'parens patriae'.

In the other honors we find Caesar not so much of the father of the
Roman state as the heir of the Hellenistic kings. His birthday was made
a festival on which public sacrifices should be made; it was provided
that annual sacrifices for his safety should be undertaken and that each
year the magistrates should swear to uphold his acts. Games to be
celebrated in his honor every four years were decreed and a day in his
name was added to each of the great festivals of Rome. ... It was
voted to build a temple to Concordia Nova because it was through him
that men enjoyed peace and concord. The name of the month Quinc-
tilis was changed to Julius. . . . But the final step came when the senate
decreed him to be a god and commanded the erection of a temple to

' The Divinily of the Roman Emperor. L. R. Taylor. Connecticut .1931. p. 59.

DEMOCRACYATROME 187

him and his Cleiiieiitia, thus formally providing for his enshrinement
in state cult. . . .^

Caesar's death at the hands of enraged republicans led only to the
eventual installation of his nephew in the place that he had come to
occupy. What is more significant, perhaps, about this succession was
that Augustus, relinquishing all claim to be Dictator and preferring
to be called Princeps or First Citizen, was careful to uphold his
uncle's divinity and later, in due course, to assert his own. It was the
religious aspect of Julius Caesar's position that he chose to inherit.

It was a mere ninety years from the first assertion of democracy in
Rome to the time when Julius Caesar was installed not merely as
dictator but as god. Within that short space occurred all the demo-
cratic movements from that led by Tiberius Gracchus to that led by
Catiline. In the process we can trace how oligarchy at Rome turned
into democracy, how democracy involved class-war and socialist
revolution, how class-war led to chaos and how dictatorship resulted
in turn from that. The process at Rome was unusually rapid. Most
rapid of all, however, was the process by which thedictator was made
a deified king. The change from a republican austerity to a deified
kingship was well within the space of fifteen years. Nor was it the
corruption of an institution that had been good in itself. It was,
rather, the only way out of a situation that had become intolerable.

' L. R. Taylor, op. cit. p. 67.

CHAPTER XV

Democracy justified by Religion

THE rule of the many means in theory that the more important
issues should be decided by a majority vote of those to whom
the franchise is extended. This theory implies a political equality be-
tween those voting, one vote being as good as another. We know of
devices that have been used to give an unequal value to the votes cast
but these we associate with states tending, like Rome, towards the
rule of the few. Democratic theory rests on the assumption that the
voters are, at least for political purposes, equal. The democrat, when
faced with the fact that those who are politically equal are economi-
cally divided into classes which are unequal in every other way, has a
choice between two lines of policy. He can either assert that it is only
political equality that matters and that other distinctions, while
present, are trivial. Or else he can demand the abolition of all
economic inequalities so that citizens declared to be politically equal
are then made as equal as possible in all other respects. In practice, the
first argument is difficult to sustain. The tramp selling matches on the
curb may be the political equal of the millionaire who sweeps past him
in a high-powered car. Each has but one vote and both are subject to
the same laws. To most people, however, (and especially to the tramp)
the inequality of their circumstances would seem to be more striking
than the special sense in which their privileges are the same. The
democrat tends therefore to adopt the other line of argument. Citizens
equal in one respect should be made equal in all. The experience at
least of Greece and Rome, in so far as it is recorded, suggests that
democracy leads directly to socialism — the equalising of all incomes
with the possible exception of those enjoyed by the socialist thinkers
themselves. Nor is it easy to see how it could possibly be otherwise.
The same experience would suggest that socialism will tend to lead
in turn to anarchy, bloodshed and dictatorship.

An exception, however, to this probable sequence is offered by
communities in which a practical equality has existed from the first.
These are the monasteries founded by the stricter adherents of a
revealed religion. It is manifest that a monastery offers the perfect
setting for democratic experiment. The inmates will readily concede
their equality in the sight of God, to whose service they are all equally

188

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY RELIGION 189

dedicated. They have no possessions. Their education will have been
virtually the same. They are ceHbate, childless and abstemious. No
one can be superior to another in wealth, marriage or posterity, and
any differences which may result from birth or upbringing will tend
to disappear. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that later demo-
cratic theory is rooted in revealed religion and that democratic
practice derives, in part, from monastic rule.

Buddhism originates, as we have seen, in a part of India where a
type of democracy was known. Whether from that origin or from the
nature of monasticism itself, Buddhist monks evolved a democratic
organisation within what was necessarily a theocratic framework.
Rule of a Buddhist monastery was vested in a full meeting of its
members. Unanimity was desired but, when this was unobtainable, a
majority vote would suffice. The rules of procedure, however, were
strict. There had to be a quorum, a minimum number present. Every
motion had to pass two or four readings, the first being formal. Any
motion might be referred to a committee, either as a form of closure
or because irrelevant and pointless speeches were being made. And
the vote could be taken in three ways; the open vote (by a show of
hands or some similar means), the whispering vote (in which the teller
was told in a whisper by each monk in turn) and the secret vote. This
last method was the most scientific. Coloured wooden pins or tickets
were distributed, each monk taking one secretly and showing it to
no one else. When the count had been made, the result had to be
accepted. But to this rule there were two exceptions. The proceedings
were void if there had been an irregularity of procedure. They were
void also if they could be shown to be unconstitutional — contrary,
that is to say, to Buddhist scripture. If valid in every way, the decision
taken was referred to as an Act.

It is of special interest to note that Buddhist procedure was far in
advance of anything evolved in Athens or Rome. It was far in ad-
vance, for that matter, of British practice now. It spread to China and
Japan and remains as the sovereign power in Tibet. What is difficult,
however, is to establish a definite connection between the monastic
democracies of Buddhism and Christianity. For the present it may
suffice to point out that the same features appear in each. The monas-
teries of Christendom held regular 'Chapter' meetings at which
members voted on matters of common business. They also held
conferences of each 'Order', attended by representatives of the
different monasteries, and it was perhaps at these that the idea of
elected representation was first evolved. Wherever founded and in
whatever faith, the monasteries provided a useful background for

• See Theory of Government in Ancient India. Beni Prasad. Allahabad, 1927 pp.
321-330.

190 THE EVOLUTION OE POLITICAL IHOUGHT

democratic experiment. For the equality which in the world at large
is a theory becomes, in a monastery, more nearly a fact.

But monastic equality is only one contribution made by the re-
vealed religions to democratic theory. Buddhism, Christianity and
Islam are at one in stressing the concept of human equality before
God. The idea in its simplest form is merely that differences in
strength, size and intelligence as between one human being and
another can be scarcely perceptible from heaven. There is furthermore
a basic equality in the facts of birth, childhood, mating, sickness,
senility and death. Buddhist equality is on a long-term basis but runs
counter nevertheless to the Hindu institution of Caste. Christian
equality is based on the doctrine of the fatherhood of God, in the
light of which the believers are equal as brethren. Muslim equality
runs counter to Arab tribal differences, instituting a fictitious kinship
in the faith which extends a religious equality to all followers of
Islam. It cannot be said, however, that these religious concepts had
initially much political effect. Buddhism has normally existed along-
side ordinary types of government. Christianity in its Catholic form
has always allowed of a certain inequality as between priest and lay-
man. Nor has it proved incompatible with a variety of political insti-
tutions. As for Islam, its democratic theory has rarely tended towards
democratic practice. It is important to remember, in this connection,
that a strong belief in the after-life provides a poor motive for seeking
equality in this.

A theoretical religious equality had little practical application in
Europe until the period of the Reformation. It remained important,
nevertheless, in restraining the lengths to which inequality might
otherwise have gone. The Christian ruler might claim divine right but
he could not claim divine descent, Christ having been childless. There
were priests at hand to remind him that he was only human and
mortal. He ran little risk of being deified. And the idea of human
equality, based on religious doctrine, was at least latent among the
peasantry. It found expression in occasional peasant revolts. During
one of these, in England, the rebels chanted 'When Adam delved and
Eve span, who was then the gentleman?' What is most significant
about this slogan is not the political sentiment so much as the
biblical context. Although subject to feudal rule, the catholic peasants
attended church and were taught a faith which implied (while not
stressing) a basic equality in baptism, communion and burial. In the
sixteenth century this aspect of Christianity received more publicity,
partly through the laity's access to holy writ and partly because the
devout sometimes found themselves subject to rulers who were not of
the same sect. If oppressed by a heretic, the people surely had the right
— in fact, the duty — to rebel. But such a right would seem to suggest

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY RELIGION 191

that sovereignty lay, and had always lain, in the people themselves.
An acquaintance with classical literature, by then becoming less
exceptional among laymen, also led to talk about the democracies of
ancient Greece. Reluctant theologians were driven to defending the
idea of equality, if only among their co-religionists.

So the first practical support for democracy in modern Europe
came from religious minorities intent on justifying their resistance to
persecution. These minorities, were Catholic or Protestant, were often
composed of quite humble people. Having lost their natural leaders,
whom they had to regard as heretical, they vested authority in them-
selves. Lainey, second General of the Society of Jesus, said something
about the sovereignty of the people in 1562, at the Council of Trent.
The idea was put forward by Mariana in 1598 and again in 1599 in a
work dedicated to Philip III. Another writer, Rossaeus, explained
'that the people can extend, restrain, change, and, if circumstances
demand it, completely suppress their government and institute an-
other, under another form'. The Jesuit Suarez defended the people
against their ruler, the poor against the rich. He was upholding the
doctrine intended, however, for Catholic subjects under Protestant
rulers. Less was heard of it in the France of Louis XIV, where demo-
cratic ideas were mostly confined to protestants, and protestants
mostly confined to jail. In England, similarly, democratic theory first
became coherent among extreme protestants who found Queen
Elizabeth's Church of England not protestant enough. They could not
admit the rightful power of King, Parliament, Bishops or Gentry and
were driven therefore to conclude that political power should be
vested in themselves, a minority of people really in touch with God.
As Hobbes remarked,

For after the Bible was translated into English every man, nay every
boy and every wench that could read English, thought they spoke with
God Almighty and understood what he said.^

The fact that the idea of human equality should spring up among
persecuted Huguenots in France and dour Calvinists in Scotland may
serve at least to remind us that the idea is religious. It came to the
fore among the seventeenth century Puritans and went with them to
America. It reached America separately from Holland and Switzer-
land. 'Let not Geneva be forgotten or despised' wrote John Adams,
second President of the United States. It is true that Puritan equality
did not extend to catholics or negroes. It did not even extend to
Puritans of a different sect. We read of Fifth Monarchy Men,
Baptists and Levellers, as also of Quakers, whose 'counterfeited

' Hobhes. G. P. Gooch. London, 1939.

192 THE EVOLUTION OE POLITICAL THOUGHT

simplicity renders them the more dangerous'.^ These and the avowed
communists or Diggers, the extreme party led by Winstanley, were
never conspicuous for their tolerance of each other. They were
agreed, however, in opposing any idea of inequality based on an-
cestry. To the inequalities of wealth they opposed a far less united
front. They achieved, nevertheless, and transmitted to later British
nonconformists a vague idea that men are equal, in some sense, at
birth. They would not accept any claim to superiority based on
descent, courage, manners, speech or dress. Some would even reject
a claim to superiority based upon worldly success. All, however,
would assert their own claim to an intimate footing with God.
When democratic ideas of quite different origin reached England in
the late eighteenth century, they were welcome, up to a point, among
people already steeped in nonconformity. And, later, it was upon a
foundation of nonconformity that the British Eabour Party was
built.

Puritanism found another home, as we have seen, in the American
colonies. The godly colonists of New England received great en-
couragement when the Roundheads triumphed in the Civil War and
were correspondingly estranged from England when the monarchy
was restored. They were still more estranged when the English
monarchy showed signs of life in the person of George ill. People of
republican views formed the hard core of the American resistance to
England. Their success in the War of Independence (with French
help) caused in Europe a wave of republican and egalitarian senti-
ment, derived indirectly from Republican Holland and Roundhead
England. Instead of looking, as some had done, to the success of the
aristocratic government of England, thinkers began to take their
inspiration from the United States; as many of them still do.

Of the revealed religions Christianity is almost alone in having
made a significant contribution to democratic theory and practice.
But that contribution, however historically important, is extremely
limited in scope. From the doctrine of the fatherhood of god has
been derived the notion of the brotherhood, and therefore the
equality, of man. This concept, based upon Christ's revelation, is
perhaps our sole authority for the statement commonly made that
men are or should be politically equal to each other. Christian
doctrine has little else to offer in this field of thought and Christian
custom adds nothing but some monastic techniques of debate which
could as readily have derived from Buddhism. Much has been made
of particular texts, like that of rendering to Caesar the things that are
Caesar's. But the unreality of conclusions based on such a text is

' See English democratic ideas in the Seventeenth Century. G. P. Goocli. 2nd ed.
Cambridge, 1927. See also The Good Old Cause, the English Revolution of 1640-60.
Christopher Hill and Edmund Dell. London, 1949.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY RELIGION 193

manifest. Christ was obviously not concerned with pohtics at all.
What he had to say on the subject was not intended as political
guidance and can mean very little when taken from its context. Christ
having taught that men are brothers in the faith, a later theorist can
explain the inference that all adult citizens should be equally entitled
to vote. But that was not what Christ was talking about. That was not
the message he was trying to convey. We have no means of knowing
what he would have thought of a ballot-box had he been shown one,
but what evidence there is would indicate no likelihood of his express-
ing even the most polite interest. Attempts to extract political advice
from the new Testament are unscholarly, dishonest or absurd.

But there has been one religious leader to whom politics mattered
rather more. This was Mahatma Gandhi. If the democracy of the
future is to be based upon revealed religion, Gandhi must clearly be
the prophet to whom democrats must turn. Of recent years, Gandhi
is, in fact, almost alone in having anything new or useful to say about
democracy. He is and will almost certainly remain the greatest
democratic thinker of the twentieth century. But the ideals in which
Gandhi believed were rooted in Hindu soil. He was well acquainted
with Christian doctrines, some of which he could approve, but he
stood apart from such democratic thought as can be traced back to
ancient Greece. He was too religious a man to accept any separation
of religious, social and political ideas. As Nirmal Kumar Bose puts it:

The foundation of Mahatma Gandhi's life is formed by his firm
faith in God. He looks upon God as that Universal Being which en-
compasses everything and of which humanity is one small part. God
is also the Law working behind all that manifests itself to us through
the senses; for the Law and the Law-maker are not distinguishable
from one another. . . . The highest aim of human life is to try to dis-
cover the Law, and while so doing to purify every act of our life in
conformity with the Law, in so far as it has been revealed to us by
enquiry.^

With this faith, Gandhi built up a body of political ideas in which
the existence and the will of God is rather assumed than proved. His
knowledge of God was gained and strengthened by personal religious
experience. His conception of God, although subtle and comprehen-
sive, allowed him to receive direct and personal guidance. He heard
'Voices' and in this resembled both Socrates and Joan of Arc.^ Nor
was he prepared to prove the existence of God by any purely rational
argument. His belief amounted to a certainty in itself. As against this,
he wanted his ideal State to be secular. He would have no State

'■ Studies in Gandhism. Nirmal Kumar Bose. Calcutta, 2nd ed., 1947. p. 337.
= The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. Gopinath Dhawan. Ahmedabad,
1946. p. 48.

194 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

religion even if there were doctrinal agreement among all. 'If I were
a dictator, religion and State would be separate. I swear by my
religion. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The State has
nothing to do with it. . . .'^ In this there is an apparent contradiction.
He would have the State secular but calls in God to draw up the
constitution. The process of reasoning by which he would justify
his political ideas is an essentially religious process and unacceptable
to those who would question his first axiom.

Gandhi's views cannot, however, be disposed of as quickly as that.
For his conclusions are at least partly based upon a worldly experi-
ence which his critics must allow to be valid. His observation was
exceptionally acute and he had a wide and practical knowledge of
affairs. He was a barrister-at-law, not without practice. He had
travelled in Europe and South Africa, organised an ambulance Corps,
edited a Journal and made himself the leader of a political party. He
might be a saint but he was certainly not a fool. And, as compared
with many theorists, he knew what he was talking about. He realised,
as he was bound to do, that politics are, at best, an unavoidable evil.
'If I seem to take part in polities', he said, 'it is only because politics
to-day encircle us like the coils of a snake. . . .'^

In the ideal State, he held, like Karl Marx, politics would become
needless. Until then, they are unavoidable, even for one whose main
interests are religious. As he put it, 'those who say that religion has
nothing to do with politics, do not know what religion means'.-' He
might have added that they do not know what politics mean either.

It would have been at least normal for Gandhi to have returned
from his travels to India, convinced (as so many Indians have been
convinced) that all India needed was independence and a democracy
on western lines. But Gandhi wanted to be free of English ideas as
well as free of English control, and the impression he gained of
British democracy was that it was a dismal failure. It leads, he
thought, to nothing but imperialism, exploitation, corruption,
instability and war. Parliaments he thought a dreary waste of time
and money. He considered the Members of Parliament hypocritical,
selfish and lazy. The conclusions they reached were not even final.
'What is done to-day may be undone tomorrow'.^ He thought the
voters as fickle as Parliament, led by dishonest journalism and
exploited by the ruling classes. He summarised his conclusions in
1934 in these words: —

Western democracy is on its trial. If it has already proved a failure,
may it be reserved to India to evolve the true science of democracy by

' Gopinath Dhawan. op. cit. p. 239.

^ Gopinath Dhawan. op. cit. p. 42.

= Ibid.

* Gopinath Dhawan. op. cit. pp. 332-333.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY RELIGION 195

giving a visible demonstration. . . . Corruption and hypocrisy ought
not to be the inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly
are today. Nor is bulk the true test of democracy. True democracy is
not inconsistent with a few persons representing the spirit, the hope and
the aspiration of those whom they claim to represent. I hold that
democracy cannot be evolved by forcible method. The spirit of
democracy cannot be imposed from without. It has to come from
within.

He expands this last thought in another context, maintaining that
the right to vote in the democratic States has proved a burden to the
people because it has been obtained by pressure rather than by
acquiring the fitness to use it. In his view a right could only be earned
by the performance of a duty. Self-government in a State could only
be the sum total of the self-control shown by the citizens. He did not
merely deny that the right which has not been earned is wrongly
acquired. He denied that it had been acquired at all. 'The true source
of rights is duty . . .' he said publicly in 1925. 'If leaving duties un-
performed we run after rights, they will escape us like a will o' the
wisp. The more we pursue them the further they will fly'. Gandhi was
not uninfluenced by western ideas. He corresponded with Tolstoy.
He had once fallen under the spell of Ruskin.^ But for western demo-
cratic practice he had no use at all.

What he had recognised was the dilemma which the Greeks had
found in their earliest experiments in democratic rule. In any naturally
formed human society one effect of civilisation will be to divide
people into rich and poor. Make the people sovereign and the poor
will use the machinery of government to dispossess the rich. By the
time they have done so the government will have become an over-
centralised tyranny, probably under a dictator. The whole sequence is
of a kind familiar to the Hindus, resembling their own conception of
the Wheel of Life. And Gandhi saw that the only escape is to remove
the desire for gain which is the motive force throughout. He thought
of the wealthy and the downtrodden as both criminal and both in
fact committing the same crime. The organising of large-scale in-
dustry, the source of disproportionate wealth and poverty, is itself
sinful. Gopinath Dhawan thus summarises Gandhi's views on this
question: —

. . . Conscious adoption of handicrafts is an important step towards
world peace in so far as mass production, which can only subsist on the
control of large markets, is the mainspring of modern international
rivalries, imperialistic exploitation and wars.

In national affairs large-scale industry vitiates democracy. For it
leads to concentration of economic power and this implies corres-

' Gandhi, an Autobiography. Trans, by Mahadev Desai. London, 1949. p. 248.

196 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

ponding concentration of political power and the ever present possi-
bility of the abuse of such power.

Mass production degrades workers and deprives them of their
dignity and worth. It uproots them from the purity and naturalness of
domestic atmosphere in rural areas, baulks their creative urge and
turns them into mere statistical units. ^

Gandhi emphasised that it is not merely capitalism that is evil but
industry itself.

Machinery has begun to desolate Europe. Ruination is knocking
at the English gates. Machinery is the chief symbol of modern
civilization, it represents a great sin. . . .

Industrialism is, I am afraid, going to be a curse for mankind.
Industrialism depends entirely on your capacity to exploit, on foreign
markets being open to you, and on the absence of competitors. . . .
The fact is that this industrial civilization is a disease because it is all
evil.^

Here he was at one with William Morris and G. K. Chesterton.
Nor would he agree for a moment with those who think to mitigate
the evils of industrialism by a policy of nationalisation. For that
could only mean transferring to the State a power which is quite
dangerous enough even in the hands of individuals.

I look upon an increase in the power of the state with the greatest
fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing
exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying
individuality which lies at the root of all progress.

The state represents violence in a concentrated and organized form.
The individual has a soul, but as the state is a soulless machine, it can
never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.

It is my firm conviction that if the state suppressed capitalism by
violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself and fail to
develop non-violence at any time.

What I would personally prefer would be, not a centralization of
power in the hands of the state but an extension of the sense of trustee-
ship; as in my opinion, the violence of private ownership is less
injurious than the violence of the state.''

Gandhi saw that democracy and spiritual unity is impossible in a
State torn apart by the conflict between the rich and the poor. But the
only way to bring about economic equality is by example and
argument.

... To induce the rich to accept the ideal of economic equality and hold
their wealth in trust for the poor, he would depend upon persuasion,

' Gopinath Dhawan. op. cit. p. 222.

" Studies in Gandhism. Nirmal Kumar Bose. 2nd ed. Calcutta, 1947. p. 30.
^Selected writings of Mahatma Gandhi. Selected and introduced by R. Duncan.
London, 1951. pp. 244-245.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY RELIGION 197

education, non-violent non-co-operation and other non-violent
means. According to Gandhiji the theory of the trusteeship of the
wealthy for their superfluous wealth lies at the root of the doctrine of
equal distribution. The only alternative to trusteeship is confiscation
through violence. But by resorting to violence society will be poorer
'for it will lose the gifts of a man who knows how to accumulate
wealth'. Non-violent non-co-operation is the infallible means to bring
about trusteeship because the rich cannot accumulate wealth without
the co-operation of the poor in society.^

Gandhi maintained that confiscation of private wealth is a crime and
one that defeats its own end. A democracy thus based on violence
will not be a democracy at all.

What sort of society is to result when industry and capitalism have
been abolished by non-violent means? Gandhi's ideal is taken from
the Indian countryside. Society must centre on the co-operative
village as a self-governing unit. Power must be decentralised to the
utmost, leaving self-contained villages to manage their own affairs.
Each village will be a democracy based upon individual freedom.

What higher organisation will there be? Gandhi's ideal was

. . . the classless and Stateless society, a state of self-regulated en-
lightened 'anarchy', in which social cohesion will be maintained by
internal and non-coercive external sanctions. But as this ideal is not
realizable, he has an attainable middle ideal also — the predominantly
non-violent State. Retaining the State in this second best society is a
concession to human imperfection. . . . The State will be a federation of
decentralized democratic rural . . . communities. These communities
will be based on 'voluntary simplicity, poverty and slowness'."

Gandhi left very little for the State to do, but he explained, in
outline, how its affairs should be conducted. All adult and working
citizens should vote for village representatives. These would vote in
turn, electing district representatives. These would elect provincial
representatives who would then elect a president. He held that these
indirect elections would diminish excitement, bribery, corruption
and violence. His ruling bodies were to have a relatively small
membership: 'True democracy is not inconsistent with a few persons
representing the spirit, the hope and the aspirations of those whom
they claim to represent'. For government he wanted 'a few chosen
servants removable at the will of the nation'.^ For president he
wanted an ascetic and saint.

This picture, in outline, of an ideal or semi-ideal State is attractive.
In so far, moreover, as Gandhi was basing his argument on political
failures he had seen and village communities which he knew, he

' Gopinath Dhawan. op. cit. p. 221.

^ Gopinath Dhawan. op. cit. pp. 382-383.

' Gopinath Dhawan. op. cit. p. 197.

198 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

merits very careful attention. It must, however, be remembered that
he derived his ideas also from divine revelation. To many, ideas so
derived are acceptable. But Gandhi's inspiration, if taken as evidence,
extends to matters still more doubtful. High in his list of principles
came that of prohibition. Low in the same list comes that of Nature
Cure, based on the idea that 'Disease is impossible where there is
purity of thought'. If we are to accept Gandhi as an inspired prophet
we must accept not only his political principles but also his permitted
drugs, which are 'earth, sky, air, sunlight and water'.' If, on the other
hand, we reject his literal inspiration, we are left with no logical
basis upon which we can agree. To any but a Hindu his axioms may
be unacceptable.

' See Duncan, op. cit. Also Reminiscences of Gandhiji. Ed. C. Shukle. Bombay, 1951.
p. 101.

CHAPTER XVr

Democracy justified by Reason

THE doctrine of religious equality existed side by side in eighteenth
century Europe with doctrines of equality based only on rational
argument. The two sorts of egalitarianism meet and mingle in the
American Revolution. They merge, above all, in the Declaration of
Independence, passed by Congress on July 4th, 1776 and signed on
the 19th. It was written by Thomas Jefferson, the impetus which
brought it into being coming initially from North Carolina and
Virginia. Ten States voted for it, three against; New York being one.
The most interesting words are these: —

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happi-
ness. That to secure these rights Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. . . }

'The document', it has been remarked 'is full of Jefferson's fervent
spirit and personality, and its ideals were those to which his life was
consecrated. It is the best known and the noblest of American State
papers. . . .-

Well known and noble the words may be. But what do they mean ?
As for the axioms stated, they were not self-evident to Jefferson, for
he took them from Locke. They were not self-evident to Locke be-
cause he took them from Hooker. And Hooker, when consulted,
turns out to be less certain about it than Locke seems to have
supposed. In any case. Hooker's arguments and Jefferson's alike
assume a Creator of mankind (as mankind now is) and are useless to
an agnostic and useless even to a believer in the theory of evolution,
who must hold that man (recognisable as such) was not created dit all
but evolved from the animals.

It is of particular interest, however, to see how Jefferson's theory
hovers between the religious and the rational. The existence of the

' The American Government. E. W. Carter and C. C. Rohlfing. New York, 1952.
Appendix.

- Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Declaration of Independence. See also
Jejferson and tlie Rights of Man. D. Malone. Boston, 1951.

199

200 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Creator is self-evident and so are his main intentions. But it is the
people, not the Creator, who have established government and their
purpose in doing so is known. When their purposes are not achieved,
the government may be altered or abolished. Whatever theological
basis there may be for the doctrine that men are created equal, it is
surely doubtful whether Christ, let alone Buddha, would have
regarded the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable right. Indeed, few
religious thinkers would recommend the pursuit of happiness at all.
Most would perhaps agree that happiness is achieved incidentally by
people who are pursuing something else. As for Jefferson's theory
about the origin of government, it is wholly mistaken. The function
of the earliest rulers over defined States was to make the crops grow.
They were not appointed to secure liberty and it is not obvious that
the builders of the pyramids ever made this their main object in life.
Jefferson's theory begins with doubtful theology and ends with an
historical assertion that is clearly wrong. Of this some of his colleagues
may have been uneasily aware. Jefferson's noble sentiments were not,
at any rate, repeated in the Constitution of the United States, as
drawn up and agreed on 17th September, 1787.
This Constitution begins simply: —

We the PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a more
perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide
for the common Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the
Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and
establish this Constitution for the United States of America. . . .

— and so gets down to business by defining the relationship between
the thirteen States and the Federal Government. And it may well be
thought that the principal American achievement was rather in
establishing a (more or less) workable Federation than in proclaiming
the doctrine of human equality, concerning which the several States
were far from agreement. Between October, 1787, and August, 1788
the principal architects of the Constitution — Alexander Hamilton,
James Madison and John Jay — defended it in the pages of the
Federalist^ with the object of securing its ratification by the different
States. These articles in the Federalist afford an early and authorita-
tive commentary upon the United States Constitution and have
served since to make American ideas more widely known and more
commonly accepted.

The opposition which the Federalist arguments were designed to
overcome came from those intent on maintaining the autonomy of the
several States. Their objections were partly met by the provision in the
Constitution itself of a strict separation of powers and a Supreme

' The Federalist, or the New Constitution. Alexander Hamilton and others. Ed. by
Max Beloff. Oxford, 1948.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY REASON 201

Court vested with the duty of safeguarding the Federal agreement.
Their attention was also drawn to two possibilities they may have
overlooked; one being that the colonies, if not united, would be vul-
nerable to external aggression; the other being that the colonies, if
entirely independent or united in several groups, would certainly
fight each other.

... To presume a want of motives for such contests . . . would be to
forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a
continuation of harmony between a number of independent uncon-
nected sovereignties, situated in the same neighbourhood, would be
to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance
the accumulated experience of ages. . . .

But notwithstanding the concurring testimony of experience in this
particular, there are still to be found visionary, or designing men, who
stand ready to advocate the paradox of perpetual peace between the
states, though dismembered and alienated from each other. The genius
of republics, they say, is pacific; the spirit of commerce has a tendency
to soften the manners of men. . . .

[But] Have republics in practice been less addicted to war than
monarchies? Are not the former administered by men as well as the
latter? Are there not aversions, predelictions, rivalships, and desires of
unjust acquisition, that affect nations, as well as kings ? Are not popular
assemblies frequently subject to the impulse of rage, resentment,
jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and violent propensities?
. . . Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinions, be
appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.^

It will be apparent that the framers of the Constitution lacked
something of Jefferson's idealistic fervour. Their feet, we may agree,
were on the ground. But they lived, nevertheless, in the period which
led up to and included the French Revolution, and the connection
between American and French ideas was close. Symbolising this
connection was Tom Paine (1737-1809), the Quaker teacher, excise-
man and journalist who migrated to America in 1775 and took an
active political part in the War of Independence. He wrote a book
called Common Sense in 1776, the year in which most of the indi-
vidual states were drawing up their own State Constitutions. He had
considerable influence in bringing about a complete break with
England, demanding independence and no compromise. He played
some part in drawing up the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789
but was absent in France when the Constitution of the United States
was drawn up, mainly by James Madison, in 1787. When the French
Revolution began, Paine was in England, where he presently wrote
the Rights of Man (1791) in answer to Burke's Refections. Elected
member for Calais in the French Convention, he was in France from

' The Federalist, No. VI.

202 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

1792 to 1801 returning then to the United States where he died in
1809 at the age of seventy-two. His life thus covers and connects the
American and French Revolutions. His dissenting background
connects him, moreover, with the English Revolution of the previous
century. His views are summarised in the Rights of Man and there
can be no doubt of his influence in America, in France, and even in
England.

Tom Paine wrote Rights of Man} to confute Burke and takes
up much of his space in doing so. He becomes more constructive
when he begins to distinguish between governments, dividing them
into those based on superstition, those based on power, and those
based upon the common interests of society and the common rights of
man. The only governments he will admit to the last category are
those of the United States and France. Elsewhere," however, he
divides existing governments into only two classes: those empowered
by election and representation and those involving hereditary
succession. 'The former is generally known by the name of republic;
the latter by that of monarchy and aristocracy'. His readers are left
in no doubt as to which he prefers. 'Those two distinct and opposite
forms erect themselves on the two distinct and opposite bases of
reason and ignorance. . . .'^ On reason, therefore, he bases 'a system
of principles as universal as truth and the existence of man, and
combining moral with political happiness and national prosperity'.
His principles are three in number, as follows: —

I. Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of
their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on
public utility.
II. The end of all political associations is the preservation of the
natural and imprescriptible rights of man, and these rights are
liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.
III. The nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty; nor can any
individual, or any body of men, be entitled to any authority
which is not expressly derived from it.

He goes on to explain what the result of applying these principles
will be: —

Monarchical sovereignty, the enemy of mankind and the source of
misery, is abolished; and sovereignty itself is restored to its natural
and original place, the nation. Were this the case throughout Europe,
the cause of wars would be taken away.

He ends happily with the words :^

' Basic Writings of Thomas Paine. Common Sense. Rig/its of Man. Age of Reason.
New York, 1942. See p. 88 for the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
'Ibid. p. 123.
= /bid. p. 128.
Ubid. p. 131.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY REASON 203

From what we can now see, nothing of reform in the political world
ought to be held improbable. It is an age of revolutions in which every
thing may be looked for. The intrigue of courts, by which the system of
war is kept up, may provoke a confederation of nations to abolish it:
and an European congress to patronize the progress of free govern-
ment ... is an event nearer in probability than once were the revolu-
tions and alliance of France and America.

Tom Paine's three principles are the first three included in the
French Declaration of the Rights of Man and he may well have been
the author of them. The Declaration begins with a preamble stating
that all public misfortunes are due to ignorance, neglect or contempt
of human rights, which are 'natural, imprescriptible, and unalien-
able'. The Rights listed in the French version number seventeen in all,
covering the general topics of liberty, law, arrest, penalties, legal
procedure, freedom of opinion and publication, the separation of
powers and the sanctity of property.

In reading the considerable body of literature evoked by the
American and French Revolutions, the student is necessarily struck
by the contrast between theory and practice. The American doctrine
of equality did not apply to women, red Indians or negroes. French-
men who became enthusiastic about the Rights of Man could proclaim
clauses VIII and IX against a background noise provided by the
guillotine. True that contrast would not invalidate the principles
themselves if we could only discover the proofs of their validity. But
Tom Paine and his French contemporaries generally follow the
practice of Jefferson, making an axiom of the proposition they have
to prove. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident. . . .' No argument
can follow from such a beginning as that. In fact, however, as we have
seen, these great truths became self-evident only after those who
stated them had read certain older publications. The roots of the non-
religious doctrine of equality are to be found in the French literature
of a somewhat earlier date. To that literature we should turn for the
proof of assertions later found to be self-evident.

Every student of European history is sooner or later called upon to
memorise the causes of the French Revolution; one of which usually
turns out to be the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau. Voltaire's
direct responsibility might be difficult to prove, it is clear, on the
other hand, that some ideas of the day can be traced to Rousseau. It
is no doubt for that reason among others that the student is advised
to read the Social Contract. The case for including that work as a
cause of the revolution is weakened somewhat by lack of evidence
that it was widely read. M. Daniel Mornet analysed the library
catalogues of five hundred contemporaries of Louis XV and dis-
covered that whereas 165 of them included Nouvelle Heloise, only

204 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

one contained the Conlrat Social. Easily the most popular work,
incidentally, was Bayle's Dictionnaire, 288 copies of which figured in
his list. As for J. J. Rousseau, his more popular books, like Emile,
may have had a generally unsettling influence. The Conlrat Social,
on the other hand, supposed origin of egalitarian doctrine, had not
only, as it seems, a limited circulation; it had also, in another way,
only a limited effect. While Rousseau admittedly discusses politics in
the abstract without expressing admiration for things as they were in
France, he is far from preaching immediate revolt. He has not filled
his book with sedition from cover to cover. What, after all, does it
contain? It starts off bravely with the sentence 'Man is born free, and
everywhere he is in chains'.^ There follows the theory of the original
contract, which is not his own, and the theory of the 'General Will',
which remains rather obscure.

What, however, of Democracy? Does he in fact prove what Paine
and Jeff'erson merely chose to assume ? He does not discuss democracy
until he reaches Book III, and then he writes: —

Taking the term in its strict sense, there never has existed, and never
will exist, any true democracy. It is contrary to the natural order that
the majority should govern and that the minority should be governed.^

Democracy, he suggests, implies a small State, simplicity of man-
ners, equality in rank and fortune and the entire absence of anything
approaching luxury. Without those conditions, democracy is too
liable to cause civil war and riot. 'If there were a nation of gods, it
would be governed democratically. So perfect a government is un-
suited to men'. Nor (see Chapter XV, Book 111) will he allow that
deputies or representatives can even plausibly simulate democracy.
When a people sinks so low as to elect representatives — as the result,
no doubt, of wealth and indolence — their freedom is lost.^

Jean Jacques Rousseau was a native of Geneva and had seen
something of democracy in the Alpine valleys. He concluded that
what was possible there might not be so practicable in other lands.
The Abbe Raynal came to the same conclusion and wrote of the
Swiss as follows: —

. . . From the top of their barren mountains, they behold, groaning
under the oppression of tyranny, whole nations which nature hath
placed in more plentiful countries, while they enjoy in peace the fruits
of their labour, of their frugality, of their moderation, and of all the
virtues that attend upon liberty. . . . Undoubtedly, the love of riches
hath somewhat altered that amiable simplicity of manners, in such of
the cantons where the arts and commerce have made any considerable

' The Social Contract. J. J. Rousseau. Trans, by H. J. Tozer. London, 1924. p. 100.
^ Rousseau, op. cit. p. 159.
^ Rouseau. op. cit. p. 186.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY REASON 205

progress; but the features of their primitive character are not entirely
effaced, and they still retain a kind of happiness unknown to other
men.^

They also still retained what is more important from our point of
view — a clear idea of the circumstances in which democracy can
flourish. This idea Rousseau also retained, expressing his preference
for small States and being prepared to explain (although he never
actually did so) how they might combine in a federation for mutual
protection.

One of Rousseau's most significant contributions to political
thought is contained in Chapter IX of Book III. It reads as follows : —

When ... it is asked absolutely which is the best government, an
insoluble and likewise indeterminate question is propounded. . . .

But if it were asked by what sign it can be known whether a given
people is well or ill governed, that would be a different matter, and the
question of fact might be determined.

It is, however, not settled, because every one wishes to decide it in
his own way. . . .

. . . What is the object of political association? It is the preservation
and prosperity of its members. And what is the surest sign that they
are preserved and prosperous? It is their number and population. Do
not, then, go and seek elsewhere for this sign so much discussed. All
other things being equal, the government under which, without ex-
ternal aids, without naturalization and without colonies, the citizens
increase and multiply most, is infallibly the best. That under which a
people diminishes and decays is the worst. Statisticians, it is now your
business; reckon, measure, compare."

What Rousseau here suggests may not be the whole answer to the
problem but it marks an enormous advance in thought. It puts him
at once in a different class, and a writer like Tom Paine is not to be
compared with him.

Democratic thinkers of the late eighteenth century rested their case
very largely on the success of the American colonists in achieving
their independence. Rousseau's background was, of course, different.
He thought of Switzerland and also, at one time, of the 'Noble
Savages' allegedly discovered by Captain Cook. But several other
French authors were interested in interpreting the apparent success
of the American experiment. And, like Rousseau, they saw that the
political problem has its economic aspect. It was one of these, the
Abbe Raynal, who pointed out that equality and liberty are not
compatible with each other. Given equality, men stagnate. Given
liberty, they are soon unequal. And liberty, he considered, was
preferable.

' America: Ideal and Reality. W. Stark. London, 1947. p. 27.
^ Rousseau, op. cit. p. 175.

206 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

It hath been said, that we were all born equals; but that is not true.
That we had all the same rights. I do not know what rights are, where
there is an inequality of talents and of strength, and no guarantee nor
sanction . . . nor do I know in what sense it can be true that we enjoy
the same qualities of body and of mind. There is an original inequality
between men which nothing can remedy. It must last forever; and all
that can be obtained from the best legislation will not be to destroy it,
but to prevent its abuses. . . .

The chimerical idea of an equality of stations is the most dangerous
one that can be adopted in a civilized society. To preach this system to
the people, is not to put them in mind of their rights; it is leading them
on to assassination and plunder. It is letting domestic animals loose,
and transforming them into wild beasts. . . .^

Raynal nevertheless wants inequality to be kept within bounds and
sees the abolition of the right of inheritance as the best means of
securing this end. He also wants to ensure that trade should not
predominate over agriculture. America, he considers, gains much
from its primitive conditions, which give a high measure of both
liberty and equality; but he notes that there is slavery there, too.

It is in the colonies that men lead such a rural life as was the
original destination of mankind, best suited to the health and increase
of the species: probably they enjoy all the happiness consistent with
the frailty of human nature. . . .^

But he bids America beware of gold, of luxury, of too great in-
equality of wealth. He urges the Americans finally to ensure that
liberty should have 'a firm and unalterable basis in the wisdom of
your constitutions'.

Another French thinker, Gabriel de Mably, also faced the problem
of liberty and equality but came to the opposite conclusion. 'Equality'
he wrote, 'is necessary to men. Nature made it a law for our earliest
ancestors and declared her intentions so clearly that it was impossible
to ignore them. . . . Did she not give to all men the same organs, the
same wants, the same reason?' To achieve equality he is prepared to
sacrifice wealth. He thinks that poverty, as existed in Sparta, makes
for happiness but he admits that the danger is one of stagnation. The
remedy for stagnation lies in the institution of private property. And
from that springs inequality, wealth, poverty and slavery. Essentially,
he thinks 'our evils are without remedy'. But there can be palliatives
and he suggests what they should be. 'I say in a word that good
legislation should continually break up and divide the fortunes
which avarice and ambition continually labour to amass'. As a
second-best to primitive equality, he thinks it best to balance against
each other the forces of Monarchy, Aristocracy and Democracy.

1 America: Ideal and Reality. W. Stark. London, 1947. p. 23,
' Stark, W. op. cit. p. 33.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY REASON 207

But what is more interesting is that Mably perceives that American
political equality must be fictitious if combined with inequalities of
wealth and the seeds of aristocracy imported from England.

A spirit of commerce will, in my opinion, soon become the general
and predominant spirit of the inhabitants of your cities.^

Wealth will result, and poverty, and then the beginnings of class
war.

With the manners we have in Europe, and which probably are al-
ready too general in America, wealth must at last usurp an absolute
empire. All efforts made to oppose it will be fruitless; but it is not
impossible, by many precautions, to prevent this empire from becom-
ing tyrannical.-

That is the most that Mably hopes for and more perhaps than he
thinks will be achieved.

Brissot was the author who admired the United States with least
reservation. He was there in 1788 and published his Travels in 1791.
He maintains that the best State is that which ensures equality by a
wide distribution of property. There would always be the rich,
perhaps, but we must avoid having extreme poverty. He advocates
property (rather than employment) for all. The peasant farmer, he
thinks, has independence, plenty and happiness in return for patience,
industry and labour.

It is in a country life in America, that true happiness is to be found
by him who is wise enough to make it consist in tranquillity of soul, in
the enjoyment of himself and of nature. What is the fatiguing agitation
of our great cities, compared to this delicious calmness ?3

It is, of course, the northern States he admires, and especially the
people of Boston and the Quakers, for their good sense and sim-
plicity. Of the Quakers he wrote 'Renouncing all external pleasures,
music, theatres and shows, they are devoted to their duties as citizens,
to their families, and to their business'. He remarks that they will
have no theatre in Philadelphia. To preserve simplicity Brissot thinks
it essential to restrain commerce and industry. Manufactures 'gather
a multitude of individuals whose physique and morals decline to-
gether; they accustom and form man for servitude. . . .' They tend, in
fact, to produce aristocracy. Brissot evidently feared (while denying)
that American wealth would soon corrupt the original ideals of
equality.

One other author must be mentioned and that is Chastellux, a
French aristocrat, philosopher and soldier who served in America

• Stark, W. op. cit. p. 54.
- Ibid. p. 55.
= Ibid. p. 93.

208 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

during the War of Independence (1780-82) and published his impres-
sions soon afterwards. He drew the usual contrast between North
and South. He noted both the democratic constitution and the
growing wealth and wondered whether they were compatible. He put
the question to Mr. Samuel Adams, who maintained that the consti-
tution balanced any growth of aristocracy by its counterpoise of
monarchy and democracy. Chastellux was unconvinced and thought
that, with great differences of wealth, democracy would become a
meaningless form and, more than that, a dangerous fiction. Socially,
he saw that approximate equality of wealth is essential to democratic
rule. But he states his objection to that equality on other grounds. He
cannot see that it is compatible with the arts. He loathed the Quakers
as soon as he saw them. 'Great musicians', he writes 'are oftener to
be met with in the courts of despots, than in republics'. He argues,
further, that the man who really enjoys retirement in the country
must have been educated in a city.

. . . retirement is sterile for the man without information. Now the
information is to be acquired best in towns. Let us not confound the
man retired into the country, with the man educated in the country.
The former is the most perfect of his species, and the latter frequently
does not merit to belong to it.^

But Chastellux agreed with Brissot, with Mably and Raynal in
one thing, that the United States would not always remain the ideal
country of liberty and equality. In point of fact, the predictions made
were almost immediately justified. A wealthy governing class appeared
in the very first Congress and was indeed championed by John
Adams, the first President after Washington. He pointed out, as
against the egalitarians, that equality of property is impossible. There
must always be gentlemen, he inferred, of greater wealth, intelligence
and education. No pure democracy can exist. Class differences were
there, as we know, from the beginning and were to become more
acute. The ideal upheld was not that of equality but that of liberty.
Nor is it surprising that the Americans, given their choice, should
have chosen as they did. For, in coming to the New World, it was
freedom they had sought.

Stark, W. op. cit. p. 78.

CHAPTER XVII

Democracy justified by Utility

THE French Revolution was the result of earlier movements of
which the American Revolution was the most important. It
was a violent experience; so violent indeed that France has had no
stable system of government since, and certainly has none now. It
achieved swift and startling results — the confiscation of crown and
church and noble property, the suppression of the monasteries, the
abolition of tithes, the abolition of titles and the destruction of all
hereditary privilege. The Revolution was accompanied or followed by
the redivision of France into Departments, a new currency, the
decimal system in weights and measures, a new code of laws, a new
currency and a new calendar. Various political systems were tried in
rapid succession. With frightful bloodshed monarchy gave way to
republic, democracy to mob-rule and anarchy, and anarchy to
military dictatorship. Dictatorship became monarchy, which was
replaced by a republic, then by a despotism and then by a republic
again. It is too early to say what the final form will be when, if ever,
stability is regained.

But while the actual experience of France is not wholly encourag-
ing, the ideas expressed at the time of the Revolution have been given
almost permanent currency. These were briefly summarised at the
time in the convenient slogan 'Liberty, Equality and Fraternity'. Nor
was this slogan entirely meaningless. Liberty of thought, speech,
religion and meeting were more or less established. Equality before
the law was more or less achieved. Political equality was gained and
economic equality left unattempted. Perhaps, however, the most
permanent and characteristic result of the Revolution was the
creation of the secular state — a thing still unknown in England or the
United States. For the rest, it is not clear that the French Revolution
made any notable contribution to political thought. The thinking
had been done beforehand and no orator of the revolutionary era was
able to progress much further than earlier thinkers except perhaps
in secularism. Granted that a measure of liberty and equality was
gained, no answer was found to the question already posed in
America; namely, whether political equality is of much value among
people economically unequal, and how liberty can be upheld in a

209

210 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

State where economic equality has been established by force. Gen-
erally speaking, we shall look in vain for any novelty in French
political thought after the Revolution.

More interesting was the development of political ideas in England
between 1776 and 1832; a development largely centred upon Jeremy
Bentham. His was the intellect behind the English Radicals. Bentham
was essentially a law reformer and codifier, his political thought
being incidental to his initial quarrel with lawyers in general and
Blackstone in particular. He wrote his Fragment on Government
(1176) chiefly to refute Blackstone, which he did effectively and in
some detail. Commenting upon one passage, he writes with gusto:

... on a distant glance nothing can look fairer. . . . Step close to it and
the delusion vanishes. It is then seen to consist partly of self-evident
observations, and partly of contradictions; partly of what every one
knows already, and partly of what no one can understand at all. . . .^

Himself a barrister, he thought poorly of lawyers as a class,
describing them as:

... a passive and enervate race, ready to swallow anything, and to
acquiesce in anything; with intellects incapable of distinguishing right
from wrong, and with affections alike indiflFerent to either; insensible,
short-sighted, obstinate; lethargic, yet liable to be driven in con-
vulsions by false terrors; deaf to the voice of reason and public utility;
obsequious only to the whisper of interest, and to the beck of power.^

Enough has been quoted to show that Bentham's works are well
worth reading. He had, for one thing, a literary gift which was denied
to many of his disciples. Using that gift, he made himself the prophet
of militant atheism, the intellectual leader of middle-class revolt
against aristocracy and the inspirer of most Victorian radical ideas.
He was himself, of course, an eighteenth century figure, friend of the
aristocrats he meant to depose and a frequenter at one time of the
country houses he meant, presumably, to demolish. As a rich
attorney's son he found no door closed against him; he had, there-
fore, none of the rebel's bitterness except perhaps where lawyers
were concerned. The middle-class revolt of his day had two main
aspects; the drive against all trade restraints and legalised monopolies,
and the drive for political, parliamentary and municipal reform. The
former movement more especially concerned the East India Company,
the Corn Laws, the Church of England and all that remained of the
Stuart attempts at State control and social legislation. A drive
against all these evils (which have mostly now been re-introduced)
might have been begun in the spirit of Rousseau or Tom Paine.

' A Fragment on Government. Jeremy Bentham. Ed. by F. C. Montague. Oxford, 1931.
p. 152.

^ Bentham. op. cit. p. 104.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY UTILITY 211

But Bentham — with some help from Priestley — carefully discarded
all ideas based upon religion, ethics, tradition, history or precedent.
He was not interested in Social Contracts. Taking mankind as he
believed it to be, he put forward, as his measure of political excel-
lence, the principle of 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number'.^

This is how Bentham defines his own theory: —

The aim of government should be the greatest happiness of all the
members of the state. But what is good for one may be opposed to the
happiness of many others. Unfortunately, it is impossible to enlarge
indefinitely the sphere of happiness of every individual without coming
in conflict with the happiness of others. Therefore, the only aim should
be the greatest possible happiness of the greatest number; in a word,
the common good is the right aim of government, and the proper task
of a lawmaker is to discover regulations designed to bring about the
greatest good to the greatest number of human beings. The just law-
maker who has equal regard for every member of the community can
pursue no other aim. The determination of every point in every law,
from first to last, without exception, must be directed toward the
greatest good of the greatest number and must rest upon that principle.
Was this ever the case?"

He answers 'No' and explains that government has always been
for the benefit of those who did the governing.

The critic of Bentham's theory, as it is thus briefly explained, would
object that 'happiness' is too vague a term. But Bentham does not
leave the word undefined. Analysing it, he finds in it the elements of
Subsistence. Abundance, Security and Equality. This last element he
expressly denies as a fact but insists upon as a working rule of
legislation — very much in the tradition of English law. Applying his
main principle to the question of the inequality of worldly means, he
points out that in the increase of wealth there is a law of diminishing
returns. A hundred pounds or an acre of land is nothing to a mil-
lionaire, little to a man of wealth, something to a tradesman and a
fortune to a labourer. It shall be given, therefore, to the man to whom
it will give greatest happiness; for so only will the sum total of
happiness be perceptibly increased. As a result of this reasoning,
Bentham pleads for a wider distribution of property.

The greatest sum of total happiness is to be obtained through the
most equal distribution of goods. The state should thus strive towards
a continual approach to equality of possession, but without impairing
its three other aims which are above equality, namely, security, sub-
sistence, well-being. Equality is, in fact, the equality of these three.
For the attainment of equality, therefore, no measures should be

' See Political Philosophy from Plato to Jeremy Bentham. G. Engeimann. Trans, by
K. F. Geiser. New York, 1927.

'' Engeimann. op. cit. Introduction to a project for a Constitutional Code. p. 340.

212 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

applied which undermine security, disturb existence and well-being,
or weaken the initiative and activity of the individual. The proper
measure is the control of the right of inheritance.^

While thus seeking to bring about a greater degree of economic
equality, Bentham was not a socialist. He considered, in fact, that
'the hostile sword in its utmost furies' would be a less dreadful
prospect than the victory of socialism. But while not a socialist, he
was a democrat. He wanted to sweep away monarchy and peerage
and leave all power to a reformed House of Commons, itself checked
by an enlightened middle class. 'An economical financial adminis-
tration', he held, 'is only possible in a representative democracy'.
He finds a further merit in such a regime in that 'a representative
democracy — in which the supreme power is in the people who elect
and reject them — will scarcely engage in war'. He strongly supported
the liberty of the press as a safeguard against oppression. He thought
he could have no better object in life than 'the bettering of this wicked
world, by covering it over with Republics'.

Bentham believed in unlimited freedom of competition, arguing
that all restrictions reduce the national wealth. Only free competition
will secure the lowest prices and the best work. He was opposed to
the acquisition of colonies, maintaining that one could trade with
them without controlling them. Colonies were to him, in fact, yet
one more instance of 'the fallacy of those artificial efforts which
legislation makes to increase the country's wealth'. Curiously, his
whole argument about the greatest happiness of the greatest number
assumes an equality of persons, and an equality moreover in their
capacity for happiness — a doubtful point — and even in their method
of achieving it. Such a belief might have been justified in terms of
Natural Law but Bentham believed in no such thing. Indeed, the
idea of natural law or natural right had been effectively demolished by
David Hume as far back as 1 748, and demolished indeed to Bentham's
own satisfaction. Hume had shown convincingly that the nature of
human loyalty and the nature of a contract are entirely different,
although both derive from a desire for a stable society. He had
shown, furthermore, that ideas of morality (including the idea that a
contract should be kept) are not 'eternal verities rooted in nature, but
merely standard ways of behaving justified by experience . . . fixed
by habit'.'" Some of these conventions concern property, others
concern government.

If the premises of Hume's argument be granted, it can hardly be
denied that he made a clean sweep of the whole rationalist philosophy
of natural right, of self-evident truths, and of the laws of eternal and

' A History of Political Theory. George H. Sabine. London, 1937. p. 508.
' Jeremy Bentham, op. cit. p. 153.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY UTILITY 213

immutable morality which were supposed to guarantee the harmony
of nature and the order of human society. In place of indefeasible
rights or natural justice and liberty, there remains merely utility, con-
ceived in terms either of self-interest or social stability, and issuing in
certain conventional standards of conduct which on the whole serve
human purposes. Such conventions may, of course, be widespread
among men and relatively permanent, because human motives are
fairly uniform and in their general outlines change slowly, but in no
other sense can they be called universal.'

Hume himself ends his essay On the Original Contract with the
words:

New discoveries are not to be expected in these matters. If scarce
any man, till very lately, ever imagined that government was founded
on compact, it is certain that it cannot, in general, have any such
foundation.-

This was an argument which Bentham accepted if others did not.
He would base his government neither on a fictitious 'contract' nor
on the laws of god nor on the laws of morality which men may have
evolved for themselves.

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we
ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. ... In words a
man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain
subject to it all the while. . . .•'

Bentham's whole argument in support of 'laissez-faire' is thus
based on the assumption that human motives are selfish and that their
selfishness can be turned to good account. But Bentham's own ex-
ample — the example of a long life entirely spent in a selfless search
for truth and the means of bettering mankind — contradicts all his
own assumptions as to what human motives can be taken to be. If
that life was 'happiness' to him (as it clearly was), his 'greatest happi-
ness of the greatest number' must be given a meaning very different
from the obvious meaning and very different from the sense in which
he used the phrase himself.

Bentham's influence, considerable in his own day, became almost
supreme in nineteenth century England after his death. His friends
and followers were the Utilitarians — Ricardo the economist,
Malthus the writer on population and James Mill, the historian of
British India. Mill and Bentham agreed to educate the former's child
to be the apostle of their teaching. Their plan was queerly successful,

' Sabine, G. H. op. cii. p. 509.

- Social Contract. Essays by Locke, Hume and Rousseau, with an introduction by Sir
Ernest Barker. Oxford, 1948.

' Jeremy Bentham. op. cit. (Chapter I of Introduction).

214 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

dreadful as the results were, physically, for John Stuart Mill. Be-
ginning to read at the age of two, he had reached the differential
calculus at the age of eight, completed his formal education by the
age of fourteen and had a nervous breakdown when he was twenty.
He went on to become an influential writer, dominating English
economic and political thought from about 1843 to about 1874. He
was the prophet of the middle-class revolution, a Member of Parlia-
ment for three years and in Parliament indeed for the passing of the
Reform Bill of 1867. His best-known work, perhaps, was his essay
On Liberty of 1859. He died in 1873, leaving as his chief legacy a body
of doctrine concerning 'free competition, free trade, freedom of
opinion, of speech, of writing and of action'.^

In comparing John Stuart Mill with Bentham we must remember
that they lived in different periods. Mill was not only heir to the
Utilitarian philosophy; he was also a witness of its immediate
results. He watched the slowprocessby which (with successive exten-
sions of the franchise) the voting power in England passed from the
upper to the lower middle class and so to the working class itself.
There is no need to enter here into a detailed description of how this
came about. The story has been told repeatedly and is exceptional
only in that the English aristocracy was remarkably adroit in avoid-
ing revolution. And yet it may be that there is occasion to remark on
one or two stages of the process which are not always sufficiently
emphasised. The aristocracy, firmly entrenched under the first two
Hanoverian kings and justified by the success of the Seven Years
War, had to meet, after 1763, George Ill's attempt to restore the
royal power. In defeating that attempt (in America, deliberately) the
great families reached the height of their power. Thenceforward their
influence declined and the younger Pitt, taught by Lord Shelburne,
did his best to hasten the process. He called in the middle-class to
his aid. Failing in his attempt at parliamentary reform he tried to
gain his purpose by other means.

... He created a plebeian aristocracy and blended it with the patrician
oligarchy. He made peers of second-rate squires and fat graziers. He
caught them in the alleys of Lombard Street, and clutched them from
the counting-houses of Cornhill. When Mr. Pitt, in an age of Bank
restriction, declared that every man with an estate of ten thousand a
year had a right to be a peer, he sounded the knell of 'the cause for
which Hampden had died on the field, and Sydney on the scaffold'. -

According to Disraeli, Lord Shelburne 'was the first great minister
who comprehended the rising importance of the middle class'. That
is why Jeremy Bentham was invited to Bowood. His views accorded

' The Social and Political Ideas of some Representative Thinkers of the Age of Reaction
and Reconstruction, 1815-65. Ed. by F. J. C. Hearnshaw. London, 1932. p. 132.
- Sybil, or the Two Nations. Benjamin Disraeli. London, 1954. p. 29.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY UTILITY 215

with those of Shelburne and Pitt, and Utilitarianism essentially
represents their policy, more especially on the economic side.
Bentham was no tool of the politicians but he had been in close
touch with one of the ablest statesmen of the day. He was going with,
not against, the tide.

If comparisons suggest themselves between the history of ancient
Rome and of modern Britain, the points of resemblance are not
coincidental. They passed through similar phases of growth and
decay. But, apart from that, the English aristocracy had been
educated in the classics. People like Shelburne and Pitt — people, for
that matter, like Bentham — knew all about Marius, the Gracchi,
Livius Drusus and Sulla. They knew more about them than they did
about King John or Queen Elizabeth. The result was that they with-
drew almost instinctively from untenable positions. They gave way,
moreover, gracefully. The technique, however, in which they special-
ised was that of retaining a ministry in office on the understanding
that they would adopt the measures of the opposition. Looking back,
it is difficult to recall which liberal measures were introduced by
Whigs and which by Tories. More recently, it is as difficult to
remember, of sociahst legislation, which Act is attributable to which
party. Ministers do what they realise will have to be done. The
transfer of power, therefore, from the classes to the masses has been
in one sense faster, in another sense slower, than is often perceived.
The measures have changed more readily than the men. The transition
from aristocracy to democracy was slow as represented by the
composition of Parliament and Cabinet. And while the types of
Prime Minister in office admittedly passed through the gradations
from Lord Melbourne to Asquith, it was not until the appoint-
ment of Lloyd George in 1916 that Britain saw a Prime Minister
who was not, by any contemporary standard, a gentleman.^

John Stuart Mill thus witnessed in his lifetime a great deal of what
Bentham foresaw. Nor was Britain his only example of a growing
democracy. Italy and Switzerland had modern constitutions from
1848. The United States became more democratic in character after
the Civil War which ended in 1865. The constitution of Austria-
Hungary, adopted in 1867, provided in Austria a House of Rep-
resentatives, to which the members were directly elected from 1873.
There was even a Liberal ministry in office from 1871 to 1879. The

' Of 35 previous Prime Ministers, 27 had been the sons of landowners. The younger
Pitt and Perceval had been barristers but were well connected. Addington was the first
of middle-class origin, being son of a physician. Canning was son of a barrister. Peel
of a cotton manufacturer, Gladstone of a shipowner. Disraeli, the novelist, was an
exception but practically all Prime Ministers down to and including Gladstone were
men of wealth or family. Campbeil-Bannerman (1905) broke precedent in having
actually been in business as a wholesale draper, but even he was a Cambridge man.
H. H. Asquith, barrister and son of a woollen manufacturer, had been educated at
Balliol. Lloyd George started life without any advantage of any kind.

216 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

German Empire was brought into existence in 1871, the constitution
providing for a Reichstag, elected on a system of practically universal
suffrage. France became a Republic again in 1875 with a democratic
constitution, a President, a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies.
Switzerland had a constitutional revision in 1874 which strengthened
the position of the Federal as opposed to the Canton institutions but
also provided for a direct appeal to the people by referendum. Brazil
became a Republic in 1889 and even Spain introduced universal
suffrage in 1890. It is true that the powers of these elected assemblies
varied considerably, those of the Reichstag for example, being mainly
advisory, and those of the Austrian Reichsrath vested as much in the
Herrenhaus as in the House of Representatives. Nevertheless there
were few countries so behind the times as to refrain from going
through the motions of democracy. Alexander II was about to
introduce a measure of democracy in Russia when he was assas-
sinated in 1881. It is not too great a generalisation to say that rep-
resentative democracy was the fashion in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century.^

To a conservatively-minded thinker, which John Stuart Mill was
not, the course of this democratic flood was a matter for alarm. It is
interesting to see how the process was viewed, for example, by
Joseph Conrad, in 1885.

. . . every disreputable ragamuffin in Europe feels that the day of
universal brotherhood, dispoliation and disorder is coming apace,
and nurses day-dreams of well-plenished pockets amongst the ruin of
all that is respectable, venerable and holy. The great British Empire
went over the edge, and yet on to the inclined plane of social progress
and radical reform. The downward movement is hardly perceptible
yet, and the clever men who started it may flatter themselves with the
progress; but they will soon find that the fate of the nation is out of
their hands now! The Alpine avalanche rolls quicker and quicker as it
nears the abyss — its ultimate destination! Where's the man to stop
the crashing avalanche?

Where's the man to stop the rush of social-democratic ideas ? The
opportunity and the day have come and are gone! Believe me: gone
forever! For the sun is set and the last barrier removed. England was
the only barrier to the pressure of infernal doctrines born in continental
back-slums. Now, there is nothing! The destiny of the nation and of all
nations is to be accomplished in darkness amidst much weeping and
gnashing of teeth, to pass through robbery, equality, anarchy and
misery under the iron rule of a military despotism! Such is the lesson
of common sense logic.

Socialism must inevitably end in Caesarism.^

' See Governments and Parties in Continental Europe. A. Lawrence Lowell. London,
1896. (2 Vols.) See also A Short History of Democracy. A. F. Hattersley. Cambridge,
1930.

'Joseph Conrad, Life and Letters. G. Jean Aubry. London, 1927. 2 vols. Vol. I. p. 84.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY UTILITY 217

Prophetic as this passage may seem, events were to move more
slowly than Conrad anticipated. The working class did not gain
control of England until the period 1910-21, nor were the results of
that control immediately experienced. But there was cause for
anxiety, and one man who shared that anxiety was John Stuart Mill.

Mill's anxiety was lest Bentham's democracy and Bentham's
freedom might be found incompatible with each other. While govern-
ment was vested in King or Peerage there might be considerable
support for any proposals made to limit the power of government;
especially its powers of interference in trade, in conduct, in morals
and opinion. But the tendency of the nineteenth century was to secure
for the people the control of the government itself.

By degrees this new demand for elective and temporary rulers be-
came the prominent object of the exertions of the popular party,
wherever any such party existed; and superseded, to a considerable
extent the previous efforts to limit the power of rulers. As the struggle
proceeded for making the ruling power emanate from the periodical
choice of the ruled, some persons began to think that too much im-
portance had been attached to the limitation of the power itself. That
(it might seem) was a resource against rulers whose interests were
habitually opposed to those of the people. What was now wanted was
that the rulers should be identified with the people; that their
interest and will should be the interest and will of the nation. The
nation did not need to be protected against its own will. There was
no fear of its tyrannizing over itself. . . .

But, in political and philosophical theories, as well as in persons,
success discloses faults and infirmities which failure might have
concealed. . . }

Mill perceives, in fact, that a democratic government may persecute
a minority and abolish freedom in a way that a king neither can nor
dare. So he makes his plea for liberty as against the tendency of
the age.

Apart from the peculiar tenets of individual thinkers, there is also in
the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers
of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and even by
legislation: and as the tendency of all the changes taking place in the
world is to strengthen society, and diminish the power of the indi-
vidual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend spon-
taneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and more
formidable. The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as fellow
citizens, to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of
conduct on others, is so energetically supported by some of the best
and by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that it is
hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power; and

' On Liberty. Representative Government. The Subjection of Women. Three essays by
John Stuart Mill.

218 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

as the power is not declining, but growing, unless a strong barrier of
moral conviction can be raised against the mischief, we must expect,
in the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase.^

Mill then makes his plea for liberty as against the tendency of the
day. He rather assumes than proves his initial position, that:

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person
were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in
silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be
justified in silencing mankind.

This view Mill goes on to illustrate with historical examples, such
as those of Socrates and Christ, to show that the one may be right
and mankind wrong. But, he argues, even if we suppose mankind
to be right, the orthodox cannot even understand their orthodoxy
until they have heard — if only to refute — the arguments against it.
Beliefs accepted, he maintains, and never argued have little influence
upon conduct. Apart frorh that, the likelihood is that the truth lies
halfway between the orthodox and the heretic. Popular opinions are
seldom the whole truth, and it is only by dispute that the truth can
be ascertained. As for those who admit the need for free discussion
but not 'pushed to an extreme', they fail to realise that unless the
reasons justifying free discussion hold good in an extreme case they
do not hold good at all.^

In Chapter 3 Mill complains again of the danger to the individual:

. . . society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the
danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the
deficiency of personal impulses and preferences. Things are vastly
changed, since the passions of those who were strong by station or by
personal endowment were in a state of habitual rebellion against laws
and ordinances. ... In our times, from the highest class of society down
to the lowest, every one lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded
censorship. ... I do not mean that they choose what is customary, in
preference to what suits their own inclination. It does not occur to
them to have any inclination, except for what is customary ... by dint
of not following their own nature, they have no nature to follow. . . .^

He sees in this a sort of Calvinism by which everything not a duty is
a sin. He pleads that originality is valuable and that people of original
minds need freedom — 'these few are the salt of the earth; without
them, human life would become a stagnant pool'. Unfortunately,
'Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the
use of and 'the general tendency of things throughout the world is
to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind'.

' Mill. op. cit. p. 20.
"- Ibid. p. 29.
= Ibid. p. 69.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY UTILITY 219

No government by a democracy or a numerous aristocracy, either
in its political acts or in the opinions, qualities and tone of mind which
it fosters, ever did or ever could rise above mediocrity, except in so
far as the sovereign. Many have let themselves be guided (which in
their best times they have always done) by the counsels and influence
of a more highly gifted and instructed One or Few. The initiation of all
wise or noble things, comes and must come from individuals. . . .^

Such individuals are resisted by the lovers of what is customary.
Mill then asserts that it is custom which rules the East and that it has
killed progress there in killing originality.

We have a warning example in China — a nation of much talent, and,
in some respects, even wisdom, owing to the rare good fortune of
having been provided at an early period with a particularly good set of
customs, the work, in some measure, of men to whom even the most
enlightened European must accord, under certain limitations, the
title of sages and philosophers. They are remarkable, too, in the
excellence of their apparatus for impressing, as far as possible, the
best wisdom they possess upon every mind in the community, and
securing that those who have appropriated most of it shall occupy the
posts of honour and power. . . . They have succeeded beyond all hope
in what English philanthropists are so industriously working at — in
making a people all alike, all governing their thoughts and conduct by
the same maxims and rules; and these are the fruits. -

By the fruits Mill means stagnation. Europe, he thinks, has avoided
this stagnation through the European diversity of character and
culture. But this diversity, in England, is rapidly diminishing as
political changes 'tend to raise the low and to lower the high' — both
in station and education. Improved communications and trade have
the same effect.

The demand that all other people shall resemble ourselves, grows by
what it feeds on. If resistance waits till life is reduced nearly to one
uniform type, all deviations from that type will come to be considered
impious, immoral, even monstrous and contrary to nature. Mankind
speedily become unable to conceive diversity, when they have been
for some time unaccustomed to see it.^

So Mill goes on to discuss what limits there should be to the
authority, not merely of the State but of society, over the individual.
He has no difficulty in showing that the State and society have no
right to interfere in matters which concern only the individual. He
gives instances of laws based on religion rather than upon public
utility; and had he lived longer could have mentioned more. He gives
instances ofliberty (when based on no real principle) being excessive,

' Mill. op. cit. p. 82.
' Ibid. p. 88.
Ubid. p. 91.

220 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

as in the parent's right to educate or neglect his child. He is opposed,
on the other hand, to the nationalisation of schools, for 'a general
State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be
exactly like one another'. It also 'establishes a despotism over the
mind'. The most he will approve in this direction is a public exam-
ination, to ensure that parents do their duty. Not that he leaves
unquestioned the right of people to become parents at all, for in an
over-populated country 'to produce children, beyond a very small
number ... is a serious offence'. His argument, in short, is that
questions of authority and reasonable interference should be divorced
from religion and prejudice and solved on the general principle of
utility.

The principle of utility certainly allows Mill to tread a narrow
path between tyranny and licence. He sees dangers on either side but
is more impressed by the perils of interference than the perils of
neglect. Even when it does not infringe on liberty, government inter-
vention is open, he considers, to three general objections.^ To begin
with, the individual normally knows his own business best. Even
if he does not, his freedom to choose is a means of education and
development. Finally the effect of state guidance is to dwarf the
individual; and it is of individuals that society is composed. He
describes in memorable words the situation which would result from
over-centralisation.

If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great
joint-stock companies, the universities, and the public charities, were
all of them branches of the government; if, in addition, the municipal
corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves on them,
became departments of the central administration; if the employees of
all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the govern-
ment, and looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the
freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature
would make this or any other country free otherwise than in name.
And the evil would be greater, the more efficiently and scientifically
the administrative machinery was constructed — the more skilful the
arrangements for obtaining the best qualified hands and heads with
which to work it. In England it has of late been proposed that all the
members of the civil service of government should be selected by
competitive examination, to obtain for those employments the most
intelligent and instructed persons procurable. . . . [He supposes, for the
sake of argument, that the State should, by this device, secure the
service of all the ablest men]. . . . If every part of the business of society
which required organised concert, or large and comprehensive views,
were in the hands of government, and if government offices were
universally filled by the ablest men, all the enlarged culture and

' Mill. op. cit. p. 133.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY UTILITY 221

practised intelligence in the country, except the purely speculative,
would be concentrated in a numerous bureaucracy, to whom alone the
rest of the community would look for all things: the multitude for
direction and dictation in all they had to do; the able and aspiring for
personal advancement. To be admitted into the ranks of this bureau-
cracy, and when admitted, to rise therein, would be the sole object of
ambition. . . . Such is the melancholy condition of the Russian empire,
as shown in the accounts of those who have had sufficient opportunity
of observation.^

Such is still the melancholy condition of the Russian Empire, as
shown in the accounts of those who have had sufficient opportunity
of observation. Such is also the melancholy condition, for all prac-
tical purposes, of the British Empire. Our further experience mostly
goes towards proving the rule that the most successful administration
produces the most complete serfdom. And Mill explains what the
further disadvantages must be.

It is not, also, to be forgotten, that the absorption of all the principal
ability of the country into the governing body is fatal, sooner or later,
to the mental activity and progressiveness of the body itself. Banded
together as they are — working a system which, like all systems,
necessarily proceeds in a great measure by fixed rules — the officials are
under the constant temptation of sinking into indolent routine, or, if
they now and then desert that mill-horse round, of rushing into some
half-examined crudity which has struck the fancy of some leading
member of the corps. . . .'"

Coming from one who never perhaps heard ot groundnuts and to
whom Crichel Down would have meant nothing, this last sentence
reveals an almost uncanny accuracy of prediction.

Mill ends his famous essay by attempting to fix the point at which
'much of the advantages of centralised power and intelligence' can
be gained 'without turning into governmental channels too great a
proportion of the general activity'. The principle which he advocates
is: 'the greatest dissemination of power consistent with efficiency; but
the greatest possible centralisation of information, and diffusion of it
from the centre'. He realises, of course, the difficulty of judging the
point at which decentralisation becomes muddle. He thinks, however,
that the mischief of over-administration begins when 'instead of
calling forth the activity and powers of individuals and bodies, it
substitutes its own activity for theirs'. He concludes finally that,

... a State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more
docile instruments in its hands, even for beneficial purposes, will find
that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished : and

' Mill. op. cit. p. 135.
'Ibid. p. 138.

222 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything,
will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in
order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to
banish.^

Far longer than his essay on Liberty is Mill's essay on Representative
Government} He asks in Chapter II what is the criterion of a good
form of government. He answers that government should be judged,
in the first place, by the degree in which it tends to increase the sum of
good qualities in the governed, taking these both collectively and
individually. It should be judged, in the second place, by the efficiency
with which it harnesses these qualities for public ends. Only a
'completely popular government' has this character. But direct
democracy, as he admits, is possible only in a small town. Democracy
on a larger scale must be representative, and representative govern-
ment is therefore 'the ideal type of the most perfect polity', although
not all peoples are fit to have it or able to do their duties under it. He
then goes on to a detailed description of an extended suffrage,
methods of election, ballot, duration of elected office, second
chambers, executive, federations and colonies. Basically, his argu-
ment is more convincing than all earlier reasonings about natural
law, implied contracts and the rights of man. Mill very properly
holds that government is to be judged by results, not by theories as
to how it may have originated. Whether his two criteria are the best
is another matter and raises some doubt as to what 'good qualities'
are. But, without criticising the validity of his reasoning, let us note
what his conclusions are. He believes in representative democracy,
with votes for all. While he does not assert (and indeed practically
denies) that all men are born equal, he does urge that they should have
equal rights as citizens and voters. He advocates political equality.

The inherent contradiction in Mill's position is obvious. His argu-
ment about political equality can lead only to socialism. There can
be no equality between millionaires and paupers. Votes for all are a
mockery where there are vast differences in wealth. If citizens are to
be politically equal it is absurd to allow one man to control six news-
papers while another controls nothing — not even himself. But how
can these inequalities be prevented? By just such governmental
interference and confiscation as Mill has already rejected in the name
of liberty. His two doctrines are incompatible. He wants to equalise
citizens as voters while simultaneously freeing them as traders. The
result can only be the nationalisation of industries, the probably fatal
results of which Mill was himself the first to point out. The measures
taken to ensure equality — the measures taken indeed as a result of

' MilL op. cit. p. 14 L
' If)i(t. p. 157.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIED BY UTILITY 223

that equality — are those certain to destroy the freedom in which Mill
so passionately believed. He was manifestly uneasy about his whole
position. He played with and even recommended devices like propor-
tional representation and even plural voting for the highly educated
or intelligent. He opposed secret voting and the payment of deputies
while demanding votes for women. In some of his arguments it is
difficult to see even the principles of Utilitarianism; he seems rather
to be guided by mere preference. But no devices of voting or electing
could help him to escape from the dilemma in which, like so many
later theorists, he had become involved. To his main problem he could
find no answer; probably because there is none.

CHAPTER XVIII

Democracy carried to its Logical Conclusion

JEREMY BENTHAM'S doctrine that the individual knows his
own business best remained the gospel in England until about
1874. The industrialisation of Britain between about 1840 and 1874
was unhampered by State interference except in very minor details.
To say that this was due to Bentham's influence would, of course, be
wrong. But those who had already decided against intervention
could and did quote the utilitarians when justifying their inaction.
The unimpeded growth of the manufacturing towns brought wealth
to many, and with wealth came political power. The English aris-
tocracy, reinforced successively by West India Merchants, East
India Nabobs, Shipping Magnates and Cotton Manufacturers, was
expanded again to include Hardware Manufacturers, Stockbrokers,
Railway Directors and Engineers. We read much in the literature of
the period of the social difficulties experienced by the newly prosper-
ous; nor were these wholly imaginary. But the two basic facts were
these: the successful manufacturers mostly wanted to join the
aristocracy and the aristocracy would usually admit them. It would
perhaps be truer to say that it was the manufacturer's wife who
wanted to be a lady and her daughter who became one. The effect,
however, was the same. Had the newly rich wanted to destroy
aristocracy as such, and had the aristocracy been exclusive, the
history of England would have been different. There would have been
revolution.

As it was, the privileges of aristocracy were extended to an ever-
widening circle. This probably happens in any aristocracy. In England
it was accelerated, however, by the development of the public schools
(a by-product of the railways) as a device for assimilating the middle
class into the aristocracy. These schools catered not only for the
wealthy but for the merely professional and aspiring. Partly as a
result of this educational device there was soon very little social gulf
between those with five thousand and those with fifty thousand a
year; and less, if anything, between those with two and those with
six generations of established wealth behind them. Clergy, Lawyers
and Physicians claimed to rank as gentlemen. Bankers tried to look
like Lawyers and Schoolmasters dressed as Clergy, the Merchant had
his commission in the Volunteers and the Moneylender his place in

224

DEMOCRACY CARRIED TO ITS CONCLUSION 225

the country. A sort of shabby gentility extended down to commercial
travellers and clerks. There was no threat to aristocracy from those
who believed themselves to be on the fringes of it.

There were always, however, a number of the more or less pros-
perous who were opposed to aristocracy on principle. These were the
nonconformists, sundered from their social betters by an abyss of
their own digging. Some of the seventeenth century sects still survived
but these were somewhat overshadowed by the Methodist groups of
eighteenth century origin. The Victorian nonconformists were well
fitted to take advantage of the economic opportunities of their day
and many of them became prominent in the life of the industrial
towns. It was always manifest that the nonconformist (unless a
Quaker) could not be a gentleman as well. He disapproved of the
gentry as frivolous and immoral, addicted to wine, gambling, horse-
racing, theatre-going and profanity. He did not aspire to join them in
the hunting field or the officers' mess. He did not wish to be seen in
the ballroom, on the grouse-moor or even in the bar parlour. He
disapproved of the public schools and his sons were as effectively
excluded from college by their upbringing as by the law. His surplus
energies went in organising temperance societies and sabbath-day
schools. He came nearest to conviviality at a Chapel tea-party and
nearest to pleasure in deploring the moral shortcomings of others.
The nonconformist was the natural leader of democracy. It was under
his guidance that the more extreme liberals became socialists. The
result is that English, as opposed to continental, socialism has always
retained an aura of dissent, a faint taste of cocoa and a just percep-
tible odour of pitch-pine pews, it is connected, not of necessity but
by historical association, with total abstinence, adult education and
that slight untidiness which goes with home-woven tweed. Many of
those concerned in the early Labour movement had, in addition,
some family connection with earlier Radicals or with the Chartist
Movement of 1838-48. They knew about Robert Owen and had read
the works of John Stuart Mill.

Although, however, there were drawing-room Marxists before
1874, it was not they who began the move towards socialism. It was
the Tory leader, Disraeli, who took the decisive step; not perhaps
through any belief in democracy but from a recognition of the
inevitable. He had a great sympathy for the working man but few
illusions about democracy as such.

... If you establish a democracy, you must in due season reap the
fruits of a democracy. You will in due season have great impatience of
the public burdens combined in due season with great increase of the
public expenditure. You will in due season reap the fruits of such
united influence. You will in due season have wars entered into from

226 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

passion, and not from reason; and you will in due season submit to
peace ignominiously sought and ignominiously obtained, which will
diminish your authority and perhaps endanger your independence.
You will, in due season, with a democracy find that your property is less
valuable and that your freedom is less complete.^

It was Disraeli, nevertheless, who introduced the Reform Bill of
1867, doubling the number of voters. The Liberals gained the first
election on the new register but the newly enfranchised artisans soon
turned against liberalism. They wanted, not the protection of private
enterprise against interference but the protection of the working man
against private enterprise. They wanted exactly what the Benthamites
had always denied them. They voted, therefore, for the Conservatives,
bringing Disraeli back to office in 1874. And it was Disraeli who gave
the British their first experience of virtually socialist legislation. An
Act of 1874 limited the working week to 56 hours. By an Act of 1875,
the Trades Unions were legalised. A Public Health Act of 1876 and
an Artisans' Dwelling Act were fresh evidence of a new trend in
legislation. Disraeli might be accepted by the aristocrats but he had
been brought into power by working-class votes.

From about 1875 the English socialists began to diverge from the
Liberal Party of which they had once formed the left wing. The two
working-class members of parliament elected in 1874 found them-
selves more often voting with the Conservatives. But the views of
other socialists began to become more extreme. This was partly due
to the great Trade Depression of 1877-78, which seemed to prove what
the Marxists said about the impending doom of capitalism. Then
came the bad harvest of 1879.

... It rained continuously. Everywhere the harvest blackened in the
fields, and farmers were faced with ruin, landlords with depleted
rentals. In England and Wales alone three million sheep died of rot.
Meanwhile industry struggled against one of those periodic slumps
which seemed inseparable from the capitalist system . . . for industry
the trade depression of the early eighties was only a passing phase. . . .
But for English agriculture the blackened crops of 1879 and the years
of continued rain and cold that followed marked the end of an era. It
never recovered.^

This turning point in the national way of life was another factor in
the rise of socialism. It could hardly have achieved the same measure
of success in a largely agricultural society.

While parting company with the liberals the early socialists also
tended to differ among themselves. Most of the socialist societies
were more or less united in the Social Democratic Federation, which

^ Life of Disraeli. Monypenny and Buckle. Vol. L p. 1608.
^English Saga, 1840-1940. Arthur Bryant. London, 1953. p. 267.

DEMOCRACY CARRIED TO ITS CONCLUSION 227

was inspired by Marxism and led by H. M. Hyndman. There was also,
however, the Independent Labour Party, led by James Keir Hardie
and drawing its support from the Trades Unions. Then there was
founded, in 1885, the Fabian Society, with a more intellectual
membership gathered round Sidney Webb, H. G. Wells, and George
Bernard Shaw. Before that, in 1884, the Social Democratic Federation
— which had failed to obtain much working-class support — split in
two. The Federation lived on, with Hyndman and John Burns as
leaders, but William Morris, Crane, Bax, Eleanor Marx and their
friends left it to form the Socialist League, which ultimately died out.
It is doubtful whether William Morris can be counted as a socialist
at all. He should rather perhaps be classed, with Gandhi, as a
democrat who saw the evil in industrialism itself irrespective of its
private or state ownership. He wanted to reverse the whole trend of
the period in which he lived. The genuine socialists, including Webb
and Shaw, accepted industrialism and were mainly concerned with its
immediate and less immediate implications.

Events which mark the progress of the Labour Movement are the
Trafalgar Square riots of 1887, led by John Burns and Cunninghame
Graham; the London Dock strike of 1889; the publication of William
Morris's News from Nowhere in 1890; the Trades Union Congress
reaching a membership of about 1,200,000 in 1892; and finally, in
1899, the decision of the Trades Union Congress to seek to gain
increased representation for the Labour Movement. This led to
fifteen Labour candidates standing for Parliament in 1900, of whom
two were elected. In 1906 there was an electoral triumph for Liberal-
Labour candidates, twenty-nine being elected, the Miners' Federation
gaining fourteen seats for itself. It was not very clear, at this stage,
what the Labour Party's principles were. Their programme and
party organisation began to appear in 1908. This narrative omits,
however, the most important aspect of the Movement. For Liberals
and Conservatives each adopted virtually socialist measures in
response to, or anticipating, Labour demands. These included the
Local Government Act of 1888, the Housing Act of 1890, the Act by
which education was provided free of charge in 1891, the imposition
of Death Duties in 1893 and the Workmen's Compensation Act of
1897. Both through central and local governments, the members of
the Fabian Society were able to secure many of their objects even
before 1906.

Between 1906 and 1914 there were many further reforms, many of
them initiated by Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Acts provided for the feeding and medical inspection of school-
children, for limiting the coal miner to an eight-hour working day,
for fixing a minimum wage in certain industries, for setting up Labour

228 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Exchanges, for Housing and Town Planning and for Old Age
Pensions. The House of Lords, attempting to resist Lloyd George's
Budget of 1909, lost its effective power under the Parliament Act of
191 1. When Lloyd George became Prime Minister in 1916 the English
Revolution had been virtually accomplished. The War finished what
pre-war legislation had begun. The way was prepared for the first
Labour Government of 1923, the General Strike of 1926 and the
second Labour Government of 1929. Roughly speaking, Britain had
become a pure democracy by 1910, with an evident tendency towards
socialism. Successive Ministers, of whatever party, had to compete
for votes by offering higher benefits to the poor and laying heavier
taxes on the rich. The levelling-out process may not be complete but
the trend is towards its completion and the achievement of a virtually
socialist society.

The British experience in progressing from democracy to socialism
was closely paralleled in other countries as from about the same
period. Socialism was strongly established in Germany from the
1860''s and led to legislation of a more or less socialist character.
Ferdinand Lassalle had led the German Workers Union until his
death in 1864, the Union thereafter merging with the Marxists to
form the Social-Democratic Party in 1875. This was suppressed by
Bismarck in 1878 after an attempt had been made to assassinate the
Emperor. Socialism revived, nevertheless, and Bismarck tried to fore-
stall the movement by legislation of his own, which was continued
after his fall in 1890. Trade Laws were introduced in 1881 and sub-
sequently; compulsory insurance against sickness in 1883; insurance
against industrial accidents in 1884; old age pensions in 1889; and a
Workers' Protection Law, which restricted the hours of work in 1891.
The Socialists were not discouraged and by 1903 they numbered three
million voters and held eighty-one seats in the Reichstag. Their success
was limited, however, by their Marxist violence and talk of revolution.
They lost their influence in 1914.

The French Socialists, well established by 1880, were also under
Marxist influence but suff'ered from disagreement among themselves.
They had split by 1890 into four groups, the French Labour Party,
the Federation of Socialist Workers, the Socialist Revolutionaries and
the Anarchists. Members of the last-named group managed to
assassinate the President of the Republic in 1894. Despite such
episodes as that the various groups (by now well represented in the
Chamber) managed to agree on a programme in 1896. This was the
work of Jaures and Millerand and led to socialist success in the
elections of 1902. But Marxist dogmatism soon produced fresh
disagreements as a result of which the moderate socialists took oflRce
as liberals. One of these, Briand, was Prime Minister in 1906. Jaures

DEMOCRACY CARRIED TO ITS CONCLUSION 229

devoted himself to pacifist propaganda and was assassinated in 1912.

Socialism in Italy dates from about 1890 but was made illegal in
1894. More socialists having been elected at the elections of 1895, the
party was again legalised. The liberals, moreover, introduced (in
1896-1905) compulsory insurance against industrial accidents and
sickness, old age pensions and further legislation concerning public
health, hours of work, subsidised housing and labour exchanges. The
Italian Socialists thus gained an indirect success and were still
numerous when Mussolini was editing the Avanti in 1912. They
organised a General Strike in Emilia in 1914 but their activities
were then cut short by the beginning of the First World War.

Socialism in the United States appeared in 1910 when Woodrow
Wilson was first heard of as Democratic candidate for the Governor-
ship of New Jersey. Wilson was then regarded as a conservative.
When elected as President, however, in 1913, he proclaimed the
New Freedom. This involved a graduated income tax in favour of the
poor, a basic eight-hour day for railwaymen and other workers and
the establishment of Boards of Mediation to arbitrate in industrial
disputes. It was a small beginning, although a foretaste of F. D.
Roosevelt's New Deal of 1933, but it was an illustration of the fact
that even the United States was experiencing, belatedly and to a
limited extent, the influence of socialist ideas.

The general conclusion to be drawn is that democracy in Europe,
fairly widely established by 1875, began its movement towards social-
ism in about that year. The movement developed strongly in the
period 1880-1900, most Socialist ideas having reached their virtually
final form by about 1895. There was a peak of politiccil success in
1902-1906 but soon afterwards a loss of direction and impetus. The
Marxist groups still demanded revolution as an end in itself, as an
essential step in progress. The more moderate groups found that their
original demands had been largely met and that what remained of
their programme seemed within reach by constitutional means. One
formerly regarded as a rebel could end, like Sidney Webb, with a
peerage. There was a pause during which the extremists, who now
held the initiative, prepared the way for the next move. Socialism in its
democratic form was intellectually finished before 1912; finished, in
fact, before it reached America at all. It was stagnant after the First
World War when the counter-offensive began. It needed no killing.
It was already dead.

In the field of strictly political ideas, the Socialists had little to
contribute. Accepting the liberal notion of political equality, they
simply pointed out that it was meaningless unless coupled with
economic equality. They merely carried the doctrine to its logical
conclusion. Some of them, it is true, wrestled with the basic idea of

230 THK EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Equality, trying to justify it in other than rehgious terms. Such is the
book called Equality by R. H. Tawney, published in 1931 and
dedicated to Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Tawney does not so much
defend Equality as ask what justification there can be for inequality.
He concludes that,

... it is the mark of a civilised society to aim at eliminating such
inequalities as have their source not in individual diflferences, but in its
own organisation, and that individual differences, which are a source of
social energy, are more likely to ripen and find expression if social
inequalities are, as far as practicable, diminished.^

Other authors have struggled with the same problem, notably
David Thomson,'- but usually with the air of finding reasons for
something already generally agreed, a policy which no sane man could
really propose to reverse. Apart from discussions such as these, the
British Socialists have mostly been glad to accept Parliamentary
Government as they found it. The Webbs once proposed having two
Parliaments instead of one but the rest have shown little interest in
political theory or in any but economic reforms. Political wisdom
ends for them with the establishment of Universal Suffrage.

While there is little to say about the political thought of the
Socialists, it would be wrong to conclude this chapter without mention
of the two thinkers of the Socialist period in Britain, whose views, in
retrospect, seem most significant. One of these was George Bernard
Shaw, an important member of the Fabian Society in its early days
but never an accepted leader of the Labour Party. He was the most
original thinker the English Socialists ever had among them and he
proved too original at times for their liking. What is especially
interesting, however, about his line of thought is that he came to
think socialism more important than democracy. For him, as for
many less gifted, socialism itself had become the aim and democracy
at best the means. Democracy for him came to have a special mean-
ing; one which the actual politicians may have shared but could never
have publicly avowed.

Democracy means the organization of society for the benefit and at
the expense of everybody indiscriminately and not for the benefit of a
privileged class.

A nearly desperate difficulty in the way of its realization is the
delusion that the method of securing it is to give votes to everybody,
which is the one certain method of defeating it. Adult suffrage kills it
dead. Highminded and well-informed people desire it; but they are in
a negligible minority at the polling stations. Mr. Everybody, as
Voltaire called him — and we must now include Mrs. Everybody and

' Equality. R. H. Tawney. London, 195L

- Equality. David Thomson. Cambridge, 1949.

DEMOCRACY CARRIED TO ITS CONCLUSION 231

Miss Everybody — far from desiring the great development of public
organization and governmental activity which democracy involves,
has a dread of being governed at all. . . .^

He goes on to explain the ignorance and indifference of the voter
and the reluctance of the intelligent person to take any part in politics.
Only a few are fit to take part in public affairs.

I do not see any way out of this difficulty as long as our democrats
persist in assuming that Mr. Everyman is omniscient as well as
ubiquitous, and refuse to reconsider the suffrage in the light of facts
and commonsense. How much control of the Government does Mr.
Everyman need to protect himself against tyranny? How much is he
capable of exercising without ruining himself and wrecking civiliza-
tion? Are these questions really unanswerable? T think not. . . .

It is a matter of simple natural history that humans vary widely in
political competence. They vary not only from individual to individual
but from age to age in the same individual. In the face of this flat fact
it is silly to go on pretending that the voice of the people is the voice of
God. When Voltaire said that Mr. Everybody was wiser than Mr.
Anybody he had never seen adult suffrage at work. It takes all sorts to
make a world; and to maintain civilization some of these sorts have to
be killed like mad dogs whilst others have to be put in command of the
State. Until the differences are classified we cannot have a scientific
suffrage; and without a scientific suffrage every attempt at democracy
will defeat itself as it has always done.^

Although he concedes that average or representative people should
have the means of voicing their grievances,^ he maintains that 'The
legislators and rulers should, on the contrary, be as unrepresentative
of Everyman as possible, short of being inhuman'. He wants to have
people classified and graded according to their political competence,
not to abolish elections altogether but to eliminate all candidates
without the necessary mental and moral qualifications for office. He
writes an interesting chapter (Chap. XXXVI op. cit.) on the kinds of
test which might be used to grade citizens according to their political
competence. And he complains, in his summary* that 'we never dream
of asking whether a Secretary of State has ever heard of Macaulay or
Marx, nor even whether he can read the alphabet'.

There is much in this of lasting value and interest but he does not
explain how to take the franchise from people who have quite recently
been granted it. He discards democracy — using the word to describe
something else — and demands a new and better constitution. But who
can approve it in a democratic state? Who can persuade the people

' Everybody's Political What's What. Bernard Shaw. London, 1944. pp. 40-41.

- Bernard Shaw. op. cit. pp. 45-46.

^ That is, in a second or Social Parliament as proposed by the Webbs.

^ Bernard Shaw. op. cit. p. 366.

232 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

to surrender the most part of their theoretical or actual powers? Who
but a dictator could create and empower the aristocracy which Shaw
wishes to see established? And how, except by revolution, could the
dictator gain office himself? In defining the word democracy afresh,
Shaw emphasises his view that society should be organised for the
benefit of all, not merely for the benefit of a privileged class. He was
not content, for example, to see it organised for the benefit of a
privileged working class with a fifty-one per cent majority. He
believed in equalising income sufficiently to abolish classes but he
had ceased to believe in the wisdom of the people. He had seen it at
work for too long.

Contemporary with Bernard Shaw and with a brain as original was
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), whose preferences were diametrically
opposite but whose conclusions were, in one respect, almost the same.
Belloc was a liberal democrat and utterly opposed to socialism. And
whereas Shaw was ready to jettison democracy when he found it
inconsistent with socialism, Belloc rejected socialism as inconsistent
with democracy. They agreed, that is to say, on the central fact of
their being incompatible. One of Belloc's most remarkable works is
The Servile State, written in 1912. That book and the Party System
(1911) resulted from his experience as a Liberal Member of Parlia-
ment, for Salford, from 1906 to 1910. In other words, Belloc entered
Parliament as one of the triumphant Liberals of 1906 and witnessed,
from a back bench, the passing of the more or less sociahst legislation
which led up to the Parliament Act of 1911. His conclusion was that
Britain had taken a road which could lead only to slavery. As an
historian he knew how difficult it is to prevent slavery, and he made
this clear in a sentence which is the starting point of his argument:

In no matter what field of the European past we make our research,
we find, from two thousand years ago upwards, one fundamental
institution whereupon the whole of society reposes; that fundamental
institution is Slavery.^

He reminds us that the freedom of the proletariat is a recent and
precarious state of affairs to be maintained only by ceaseless demo-
cratic vigilance. A Capitalist State, democratic in theory but with
vast differences in economic status, is, he points out, essentially
unstable. It is a pyramid balanced upon its apex. It can be upset at
any moment by a democratic attack on the wealthy or a capitalist
attack on democracy. The theory of equality and the concrete facts
are too much at variance for stability to be achieved.

If the Capitalist State is in unstable equilibrium, this only means that
it is seeking a stable equilibrium, and that Capitalism cannot but be
transformed into some other arrangement wherein Society may repose.
' T/ie Servile State. Hilaire Belloc. London, 1912. p. 31.

DEMOCRACY CARRIED TO ITS CONCLUSION 233

There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capital-
ism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property. . . .

The problem turns, remember, upon the control of the means of
production. Capitalism means that this control is vested in the hands
of few, while political freedom is the appanage of all. If this anomaly
cannot endure, from its insecurity and from its own contradiction with
its presumed moral basis, you must either have a transformation of the
one or of the other of the two elements which combined have been
found unworkable. These two factors are (1) The ownership of the
means of Production by a few; (2) The Freedom of all. To solve
Capitalism you must get rid of restricted ownership, or of freedom,
or of both.^

The abolition of restricted ownership can be brought about in two
ways, either by redistributing property among the many or by vesting
it in the State. 'The essential point to grasp is that the only alternative
to private property is public property'. The choice is between Distri-
butism and Socialism. But the redistribution of property, in an indus-
trial state, is politically and even technically difficult. It might follow
some external catastrophe but could hardly be done from within,
without so disturbing 'the whole network of economic relations as to
bring ruin at once to the whole body politic'.'^ The difficulty, in fact,
of 'redistributing' a railway system would be less formidable than
that of persuading the employees to accept property in the railway
(with its attendant risks) instead of a secure living wage. Belloc
concludes, reluctantly, that Capitalist modes of thought and the
division of society into employers and employed, must present an
almost impossible situation to the distributist reformer. He wants to
take from those who are unwilling to relinquish in order to give to
those who are unwilling to receive. In practice, therefore, it is only
the socialist who makes any progress.

The Socialist movement ... is itself made up of two kinds of men:
there is (a) the man who regards the public ownership of the means of
production (and the consequent compulsion of all citizens toworkunder
the direction of the State) as the only feasible solution of ourmodernills.
There is also (b) the man who loves the CoUectivist ideal in itself, who
does not pursue it so much because it is a solution of modern Capital-
ism, as because it is an ordered and regular form of society which
appeals to him in itself. He loves to consider the ideal of a State in
which land and capital shall be held by public officials who shall order
other men about and so preserve them from the consequences of
their vice, ignorance, and folly.

These types are perfectly distinct, in many respects antagonistic,
and between them they cover the whole Socialist movement.^

' Belloc. op. cit. pp. 97-98.

^ Ihid. p. 110.

' Ibid. pp. 121-122.

234 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

The Socialist party, comprising these divergent elements, finds
itself confronted with the formidable entrenchments of Capitalism,
strengthened with the barbed wire of legal, moral and technical
entanglement. The assault is not going to be easy. There is a parley.
The Socialist leader says to the Capitalist 'I desire to dispossess you,
and meanwhile I am determined that your employees shall live
tolerable lives'.' The Capitalist shows that the attempt to evict him
can lead only to disaster. But he is willing to compromise. While
retaining his position, he will make the workers' lives more tolerable
— provided they will accept certain conditions, to be agreed.

This idealist social reformer, therefore, finds the current of his
demand canalised. As to one part of it, confiscation, it is checked and
barred; as to the other, securing human conditions for the proletariat,
the gates are open. Half the river is dammed by a strong weir, but there
is a sluice, and that sluice can be lifted. Once lifted, the whole force of
the current will run through the opportunity so afforded it; there will
it scour and deepen its channel; there will the main stream learn to
run.^

In other words, nearly everything that the humanitarian socialist
wants can be achieved. He can end the suffering and insecurity of the
poor, provided they will accept a diminution of their freedom; for
that is what the attached conditions will amount to. The Capitalist
cannot give them security unless they will do as they are told. The
idealist Reformer will find that he has brought about the Servile
State. What of his colleague, the lover of statistics? He is still less
likely to risk a frontal assault, without even moral indignation to
drive him on. He finds, in fact, that all he really cares about — a tidy
system and a high salary for himself — can be gained with relative
ease.

To such a man the Servile State is hardly a thing towards which he
drifts, it is rather a tolerable alternative to his ideal Collectivist State,
which alternative he is quite prepared to accept and regards favour-
ably. . . .

The so-called 'Socialist' of this type has not fallen into the Servile
State by a miscalculation. He has fathered it; he welcomes its birth,
he foresees his power over its future.^

Belloc saw the beginnings of the Servile State in the National
Insurance Act of 1911, partly because the definition of the persons to
be compulsorily insured drew the line between the proletariat and the
free, and partly because, to the threat of unemployment could now
be added the threat of a deprivation of savings.

• Belloc. op. cit. pp. 124-125.
'Ibid. p. 125.
'Ibid. pp. 129-139.

DEMOCRACY CARRIED TO ITS CONCLUSION 235

A man has been compelled by law to put aside sums from his wages
as insurance against unemployment. But he is no longer the judge of
how such sums shall be used. They are not in his possession; they are
not even in the hands of some society, which he can really control.
They are in the hands of a Government official. 'Here is work offered
you at twenty-five shillings a week. If you do not take it you certainly
shall not have a right to the money you have been compelled to put
aside. If you will take it the sum shall still stand to your credit, and
when next in my judgment your unemployment is not due to your
recalcitrance and refusal to labour, I will permit you to have some of
your money: not otherwise'. Dovetailing in with this machinery of
compulsion is all that mass of registration and docketing which is
accumulating through the use of Labour Exchanges. Not only will the
Official have the power to enforce special contracts, or the power to
coerce individual men to labour under the threat of a fine, but he will
also have a series of dossiers by which the record of each workman can
be established. No man, once so registered and known, can escape;
and, of the nature of the system the numbers caught in the net must
steadily increase until the whole mass of labour is mapped out and
controlled.

These are very powerful instruments of compulsion indeed. They
already exist. They are already a part of our laws.^

Belloc lived long enough to see the logical conclusion of the process;
the legalised 'direction' of labour. The Servile State had arrived, as
he had predicted in that final paragraph with which his book is
brought almost to its close:

The internal strains which have threatened society during its
Capitalist phase will be relaxed and eliminated, and the community
will settle down upon that Servile basis which was its foundation before
the advent of the Christian faith, from which that faith slowly weaned
it, and to which in the decay of that faith it naturally returns.^

' Belloc. op. lit. pp. 175-176.
' Ihid. p. 183.

PART IV

Dictatorship

CHAPTER XIX

Democracy in Decline

HILAIRE BELLOC tried to show that, in an industrial com-
munity at least, democracy will tend to turn into Socialism or
else into that compromise which exists in what he termed the Servile
State. Subsequent events have gone some way to justify his theory.
They have also, however, led many to suspect that the alternative
offered is an unreal one; that there is a distinction here without a
difference. In Britain, at any rate, we have seen private enterprise
swept away by combines, price-rings and trade associations to the
point at which nationalisation, when it comes, makes little apparent
difference. When the possible employers in a particular trade have
been reduced, by successive mergers, to perhaps half-a-dozen; when
these few Boards of Directors, perhaps with an overlapping member-
ship, have reached agreement with each other about prices, wages and
quality of product, they cannot resist nationalisation in the name of
free competition for (as everyone knows) there is none. In a period,
moreover, of impending slump they may actually welcome national-
isation as tending to fix salaries at a level which future profits might
not otherwise justify. To the employees the change may be welcome
for the same reason. To the consumers the change will probably
make no difference at all. Socialism and the Servile State would
appear to be much the same thing. In either form of democracy the
voters have traded their liberty in exchange for secure wages. In each,
democracy remains effective enough to ensure that the level of wages
is at least maintained. In neither form is democracy very consistent
with freedom.

Modern European democracy, in a more or less socialist form,
reached its highest level of popularity in 1918. The First World War
could be represented as a conflict between obsolete and progressive
countries; between despotism and democracy. Its immediate and most
spectacular result was the collapse of monarchy in Germany, Austria-
Hungary and Russia. The world could be re-shaped according to the
views of the democratic countries, Britain, France and the United
States. More than that, the result of the war had seemed to show that
the democratic way of life could produce armies which were actually
more effective than those ordered into battle by despots. The soldiers
of democracy had something, it was thought, for which they could

238

DEMOCRACY IN DECLINE 239

fight. Athens must eternally prove superior to Sparta, Grant must
always triumph over Lee. The making of peace was to be the work of
genuine democrats — Briand, son of an innkeeper of Nantes, Lloyd
George, son of an itinerant teacher and brought up by a cobbler, and
Woodrow Wilson, the college president and idealist. The future of
the world seemed brighter than ever before.

What is extraordinary, in retrospect, is the speed with which the
vision disappeared. Readers of Plato and of Karl Marx might have
expected to see democracy collapse in anarchy and revolution.
Readers of John Stuart Mill might have questioned whether socialism
was compatible with liberty. But none surely would have expected
it to collapse as quickly as it did. Representative Democracy had
become the vogue by about 1875. It had led to Socialism, which was
widespread in 1895 and triumphant by about 1910. By 1930 the period
of socialistic democracy was practically over. 'Socialism' wrote
Joseph Conrad 'must inevitably end in Caesarism', but even those
who shared his fears would hardly have dared to predict that the
socialist era would be as brief as it proved to be.

In considering the question of how long a democratic phase of
government may be expected to last, we can appeal to reason, to
history and to recent experience. Merely theoretical discussion would
lead us to expect one of two things. Either the proletariat would
establish a socialist state or it would fail as against middle-class
opposition. If it succeeded, the State would acquire such an accumu-
lation of centralised power — political, economic, religious and cultural
— that some of the former upper class would be goaded into revolt.
Supposing the conspiracy or rising should attract any measure of
support, in the name of freedom, the strongest personality in the
government would make himself dictator during the emergency:
thereafter, the rising crushed, he would remain dictator as a pre-
caution against any future threat of the same kind. In the opposite
case, supposing that the socialist police state has not been firmly
established, the middle classes might rally to protect their lives and
property. In the struggle they will appoint a leader or more probably
allow the leader to appoint himself. By the time the conflict ends
in a middle-class victory, the leader will have become dictator;
and he must remain dictator, this time in a capitalist police state, to
prevent the proletariat rising again. Civil War of this kind seems likely
to produce dictatorship in any case; nor do dictatorships of different
origin differ from each other as much as might be supposed. For the
dictator, in the last resort, is not so much a master of intrigue and
cruelty as a man with sufficient moral courage to open fire. It is some-
times thought that the invention of automatic weapons has ended for
ever the effectiveness of the mob, putting all the trump cards in the

240 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

hands of whatever government there is. But revolutions are not
brought about, have never been brought about, by weapons; nor is it
by weapons that a rising is suppressed. Governments which collapse
when mobbed are usually lacking not weapons but courage. At some
point in a situation of growing disorder someone must give the order
to fire or charge. In a capital city — with the certainty that half the
casualties will be innocent bystanders — this requires a fair amount of
courage, it is easiest for a foreigner, a Prince Rupert, a Napoleon, a
General Dyer; and easier still if the troops are also foreign — Scottish
mercenaries in Paris, Swiss mercenaries in Rome or German mer-
cenaries in Algiers. But the risk is considerable, for the man who takes
the responsibility may never be forgiven by the people and may easily
be disowned by his own side. That is why a feeble government will
allow riot and bloodshed to go on for days while its leaders twitter
among themselves about humanity. Some twenty cartridges will
disperse the average crowd but a man like Napoleon does not stop at
that; he cheerfully uses artillery. The smoke has hardly cleared before
he finds himself dictator.

Once a man has become dictator he cannot, usually, abdicate. If
he does, the enemies he has made will kill him. Sulla resigned, it is
true, and lived for a year. But Julius Caesar could not have resigned
— he was murdered even while still in office. Pompey could not have
resigned, nor Cromwell, nor Napoleon. It is the knowledge of his
own danger that drives the dictator on to eliminate his opponents.
Nor does it very much matter whether he began, like Julius Caesar,
as a democratic leader, or like Sulla as the saviour of the oligarchs.
Once in office he must rule as he can. That is why Gandhi was
supremely right in maintaining, as he did, that an egalitarian democ-
racy cannot be achieved by force but only by persuasion. Once
violence has been used, the feelings aroused will make further violence
unavoidable. And in a state of tension and fear the party led by one
will always (given anything like equal chances) defeat the party led by
a committee. There are therefore abstract reasons for doubting
whether socialism, as a phase in the decline of democracy, can be
expected to last for long. There are abstract reasons again for
supposing that it will lead to dictatorship.

Does history, generally, bear out this conclusion? For early
civilisations the evidence is scanty. We know that ancient Egypt had
a form of revolution against a ruling class. The sage Ipuwer bewailed
the results in phrases which suggest what had happened. 'The
wealthy are in mourning. The poor man is full of joy. Every town
says "Let us suppress the powerful among us'' '. 'The son of a man of
rank is no (longer) distinguished from him who has no such father'.
'Those who were clad in fine linen are beaten. Noble ladies suflfer like

DEMOCRACY IN DECLINE 241

slave girls'. 'All female slaves are free with their tongues. When their
mistress speaks, it is irksome to the servants'. 'Princes are hungry and
in distress'. 'Serfs become lords of serfs'. 'The corn of Egypt is com-
mon property'. 'The chiefs of the land flee. Noble ladies go hungry'.
'No craftsman works. . . .' This is certainly a fair description of a
revolution and the sage goes on to describe the results. 'Plague is
throughout the land. Blood is everywhere. Death is not lacking'. The
next known event is the proclamation of Intef or Antef of Thebes
as the first king of the Eleventh Dynasty, about 2160 b.c.^

In ancient Greece the examples of democracy turning into dic-
tatorship after a phase of socialism were so numerous that the Greek
thinkers felt justified in regarding that sequence as almost a law of
nature. In ancient Rome the episode of democracy and socialism was
relatively brief but quite recognisable. It is only, however, of modern
times that we have such full information as to be quite certain what
happened. And that historical experience is incomplete in the sense
that it is still going on. No one could attempt to deduce a law from
what is, after all, only a single example.

But one aspect of quite recent experience is the way in which a
democratic government may lose support even before its 'levelling'
policy has gone very far. On this subject Gopinath Dhawan is
admirably precise:

In recent years Parliamentary Government has been subjected to
severe criticism. Thus the system of elections; the slow-moving pro-
cedure; the incapacity of the system, due to centralization and con-
gestion of business, for the really creative work of social and economic
planning; the dictatorship of the cabinet; the increasing power of
permanent officials; the failure of the system to induce the citizen to
participate actively in political life; the absence of approximate
economic equality — all these weak points have been assailed by many
critics. To Gandhiji [i.e. Gandhi, as usually spelt] democracy remains
unachieved more on account of the prevailing belief in the efficacy of
violence and untruth than on account of mere institutional inadequacy.
Democracy is really vitiated by the wrong ideas and ideals that move
men."

Impatience with democracy had become fairly general before a
quarter of the twentieth century had passed. Bernard Shaw describes
how real socialism had been frustrated in England by the party system
and by universal suffrage. While attributing this to the cunning of
Disraeli, he admits that things were no better in Germany or France.

... As nothing parliamentary happened either in Germany or any-
where else, the proletariat became more and more disappointed and
disgusted with parliamentary government without understanding

' The Steppe and the Sown. H. Peake and H. J. Fleure. Oxford, 1928. pp. 142-143.
- The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. Gopinath Dhawan. Ahmedabad, 1951.
p. 334.

242 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

what was the matter with it. Anarchists, Syndicahsts, and Guild
Socialists, crushed by Fabianism, raised their heads again and were
able to shew that militant city mobs were more feared by despots than
parliamentary Labour Parties by the Capitalist oligarchy. Despotic
dictators came into fashion as fast as Lib-Lab prime ministers lost
face. Peter the Great building a new capital city on the Neva; Napoleon
sweeping out Augean stables, breaking rusty chains, draining marshes,
making roads for world traffic, and opening a career to the talents in
a blaze of revolutionary glory; his nephew Haussmanising Paris and
Mussolini rebuilding Rome; Primo de Rivera and Hitler covering their
countries with up-to-date roads, were contrasted with the British
parliament's helpless inability to build a bridge over the Severn, and
the impotence of Liebknecht and Bebel under the heel first of Bis-
marck and then of the Kaiser. No parliament could either abolish
unemployment, the most dreaded affliction of the proletariat, or treat
the unemployed decently. . . . Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini found,
as Cromwell had found before them, that . . . they could get anything
they wanted done, and sweep all parliamentary recalcitrants into the
dustbin, alive or dead. To the people it seemed that the dictators could
fulfil their promises if they would, and that the parliamentary parties
could not even if they would. No wonder the plebiscites always gave
the dictators majorities of ninety-five per cent and upwards.^

Gandhi, the more profound thinker, says plainly that democracy
cannot work if the voter's chief aim is to benefit himself. In his view
(and he is obviously right) no good can come of the violence which a
state confiscation of private wealth must involve. Bernard Shaw sees
that the kind of socialism he wants will never be voted by any
electorate he knows. A moderate socialism, in fact, with the voters
seeking a secure wage and no responsibility can produce only Belloc's
Servile State. Real socialism, on the other hand, brought about by an
extremist group, will mean violence, and violence will mean dictator-
ship. But what is significant about Bernard Shaw's viewpoint is his
admission that dictatorship, when it comes, is actually what many
people want. The democracy that does not fail through socialist
violence fails through mere incompetence; and through an incom-
petence which has become notorious, public and meas-urable.

It has been suggested on an earlier page (see p. 173) that the
defects of Athenian democracy appeared in the disunion produced
by socialist measures; in public finance; and in external affairs. How
far does recent experience confirm the view that democracy is liable
to fail in those particular directions? It would be a study in itself to
analyse the history of European democracy since 1900, and further
volumes would be needed to cover the history of democracy else-
where. All that can be done here is to show that the Athenian defects

' Everybody's Political What's What. Bernard Shaw. London, 1944. p. 263.

DEMOCRACY IN DECLINE 243

are not unknown to-day; which is not the same thing as to show that
they are universal.

The best example of democratic disunity producing disaster is
afforded by the fall of France in 1940. Not all the circumstances of the
collapse are relevant to the present purpose nor were all its causes
even political. What is clear, nevertheless, is that the French were so
divided among themselves that their military effort came to nothing.
More to the point, they quickly produced a government which was
virtually collaborationist, led by an aged general whose love for
France was less perhaps than his detestation of socialism in its
French form. The earlier manifestations of disunity — Boulangism, the
anti-Dreyfus agitation, the politics of the Action Frangaise — all
foreshadowed what would sooner or later take place. Elsewhere in
the world believers in democracy took heart from the triumph of
the First World War. But the French had been defeated in that war
and saved only by their allies. Their feeling when war ended was not
one of elation but of dread. Their fear of German revenge was
justified by events but it produced no sort of unity. French society
had been destroyed in successive revolutions, leaving nothing but
left-wing malcontents whose spiritual home was in Soviet Russia and
right-wing malcontents whose spiritual home was in Italy or Spain.

From Germany's exit from the League of Nations in October, 1933,
a sub-revolutionary period set in for France. Both the Italo-Abys-
sinian War and the Spanish Civil War tore the tissue of France's
national opinion to shreds, set all antagonisms ablaze and produced
the well-known historical phenomenon of some Conservatives'
preference for a foreign invader to the victory of the progressive
social forces in his own country. . . }

The French armies did not fight; they disintegrated. Nor is their any
sign of recovered unity since 1945. As a world power France no
longer exists.

For an example of the dangers of democratic finance we need go
no further than England. And yet the tendency to build up an
enormous civil service, such as existed at Athens, is universal and not
even directly connected with democracy. What is distinctively demo-
cratic is the force which prevents any reduction in the establishment
which has been built up. The increase in itself is due to a law of
growth which affects every administrative office; a law which has yet
to be fully investigated, the workings of which are manifest although
not yet reduced to a satisfactory formula. The obvious fact is that
anyone appointing an administrator to do a certain continuing task,
assisted by two clerks, will find (after two or three years) that the
original official is now assisted by two others, dividing the work
between them, and each of these aided in turn by two clerks. A year

* The Future of Government. H. Finer. London, 1946. p. 80.

244 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

or two later the official first appointed will need a higher salary in
order to control two sub-departments, each of which will comprise a
head and two or more assistants, each again with clerks to assist him.
By then there will have to be an establishment officer in addition, to
deal with problems of emoluments and leave. So much is common
knowledge. What is less widely realised is that the increase in staff is
governed by a law of growth which is not related in any way to the
amount of work to be done.^ The volume of outside correspondence
may be constant, it may have diminished; it may even have increased.
But the staff will multiply in any case and at approximately the same
speed, all working as hard as (and some working harder than) before.
In a commercial concern this process will not continue unchecked for
ever and may be reversed promptly in a period of slump. Under a
monarchy the process may be undone when the king wants the
money for something else, if only for a new mistress. But no one
can reduce the civil service in a democracy. No one can economise on
staff in a nationalised industry. To do so would be to lose votes on a
big scale. There is hardly a modern state not grossly overburdened
with unproductive clerks and officials, and Britain perhaps as over-
burdened as any. But there is no remedy for it under a democratic
form of rule.

Lastly, there is the question of foreign and colonial policy. So far
as Great Britain is concerned, it must be remembered that democratic
measures were for long introduced by aristocratic men. No revolution
came to break the older traditions and the process of democratic
dilution has not been completed even yet. Even after Lloyd George
began to found the Welfare State, diplomacy and the armed services
remained in aristocratic hands — so much so that there were fears of
armed revolt over Ulster in 1914. The result was that the diplomatic
preparation for the First World War was admirable. It was conducted,
that is to say, solely with regard to national interests. There was little
confusion about ideological aims. It took even longer for democracy
to affect the Army and Navy, both remaining under more or less
aristocratic leadership throughout and after the Second World War.
To judge the effectiveness of democratic foreign policy we must turn
to the British record between 1916 and 1940. Of democratic war
leadership there is as yet no British example at all. All that can be
noted on that score is that the British turned with relief to an aristo-
cratic leader in 1940, leaving the direction of the war thereafter to
him and to senior officers who equally dated from the old regime.
The results of throwing the services open to talent cannot be known
until another decade has passed. We know, in the meanwhile, that the
age of Pericles is over.

' See The Economist, Nov. 19th, 1955.

DEMOCRACY IN DECLINE 245

Would it be fair to say that British foreign policy in 1916-1940
reproduced all the Athenian mistakes? That the foreign policy itself
was all but suicidal is obvious from the facts, in 1914 Britain faced up
to the German aggressor in firm alliance with Russia, France and
Japan, thereafter obtaining the alliance of Italy, Roumania, China
and the United States. Diplomatically outmanoeuvred, the Kaiser
had Austria, Turkey and Bulgaria as his only allies. In 1939, by
contrast, Britain went to war against the same aggressor with France
and Poland as her only allies. Germany was then in alliance with
Austria and other satellite countries and enjoyed, in addition, a
diplomatic understanding with Italy, Spain, Japan and Russia. As
against that, Great Britain had no understanding with the United
States, which in fact remained neutral until attacked. Nor was this
all. For there was actually a moment in 1939-40 when Great Britain,
already at war with Germany and still unaided by the United States,
was actually aiding Finland against Russia with every likelihood of
having in consequence to fight the Russians as well. As it proved no
easy task, in the end, for Great Britain, Russia and the United States
to defeat Germany by their combined efforts, an attempt by Great
Britain to fight both Germany and Russia, and without American
help, would have been magnificent. But is that war? More to the
point, is that foreign policy? Disraeli had uttered a specific warning
that, under a democracy 'You will in due season have wars entered
into from passion, and not from reason'.^ On the face of it, the failure
of British foreign policy would seem to have been complete.

It is not enough, however, for our present purpose, to show that
British foreign policy had failed, even though the fact is beyond dis-
pute. We have to show that it failed through being democratic.
Mistakes in foreign policy are not confined to democracies, as the
Kaiser proved in 1914. What we have to ascertain is whether the
mistakes made were of a kind to which democracies are peculiarly
liable. Were they brought about, in fact, by the pressure of public
opinion? Or were the disasters due to circumstances unrelated to any
form of rule? In considering this question the basic fact to realise is
that the British Empire began to disintegrate in 1921. A result of the
Washington Conference was to weaken, not only the Royal Navy but
the entire British position in the Far East. This was the first step in a
process which was to involve the loss of India. Behind this process
was the realisation in Britain that a democracy has no right to govern
an empire. British voters could not logically deny to the Hindoos the
political privileges they claimed for themselves. When, moreover, the
British forgot the weakness of their moral position the Americans
were always quick to remind them of it; being in fact (as it happened)

' See above, p. 225.

246 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

less sensitive about American imperialism than British. As a back-
ground, therefore, to British foreign policy was the weakening of the
Empire generally and the steady deterioration of the position in the
Far East; due in part to American pressure but also in part to the
moral sentiments of the British voters whose sentiments joined
happily with their preference, for the money saved on warships
could be (and was) spent on social benefits for themselves.

While it may be admitted, however, that the disintegration of the
Empire (or the beginnings of it) made the statesman's task more
difficult, it could be urged that the moral position of Britain was an
asset and that the purity of British motives would make friends to
take the place of subjects. No true democrat could accept it as a valid
criticism of British policy that the principles of freedom were allowed
to prevail in the Empire over mere principles of strategy. So that it is
to foreign policy in the narrower sense that we must look for proof of
democratic weakness. There are three aspects of this which seem
worthy of study; the methods used, .the aims in view and the specific
results. As regards the methods there can be few better witnesses than
Sir Harold Nicolson, who writes:

The essential defect of democratic policy can be defined in one word,
namely 'irresponsibility'. Under a monarchic or ohgarchic system the
'sovereign' who enters into a contract with some foreign State feels
himself personally 'responsible' for the execution of that contract. For
a monarch or a governing class to repudiate a formal treaty was
regarded as a dishonourable thing to do, and would have aroused
much criticism both at home and abroad. Now, however, that the
people are 'sovereign', this sense of individual or corporate respon-
sibility no longer exists. The people are in no sense aware of their own
sovereignty in foreign affairs and have therefore no sense of responsi-
bility in regard to treaties or conventions entered into with other
Powers, even when they have themselves, through their elected rep-
resentatives, approved of those treaties. They are honestly under the
impression that their own word has not been pledged and that they
are therefore fully entitled to repudiate engagements which they may
subsequently feel to be onerous or inconvenient. . . .^

This might seem exaggerated but it is more than borne out by the
facts.

The chief asset with which the Labour party approached the conduct
of British foreign policy was that it had no past to be ashamed of and
no heritage to live down. It had played no part in the secret diplomacy
preceding the war or in the peace settlement. ... It had no responsi-
bility for the blockade or the armed intervention against Soviet Russia.
It had, in opposition, denounced these policies and proclaimed that it
would never be bound, as a government, by secret treaties or arrange-

' Ciirzon, the last phase. 1919-1925. H. Nicolson. London, 1934. p. 391.

DEMOCRACY IN DECLINE 247

ments with foreign nations which it might find in existence when it
assumed power. Its advocacy of a just peace and its insistence upon
the reconciliation of the victors and the vanquished had an immense
appeal to a world divided by hostility and suspicion. It was on such a
basis that Labour was prepared to inaugurate a new era of international
good will and co-operation.^

It is not obvious, at first sight, why a refusal to abide by earlier agree-
ments (if only secret ones) should in itself banish suspicion or attract
goodwill. Even, however, if it did, the principle here upheld seems to
combine idealism and duplicity in a way which foreign governments
might eventually find confusing. In comparing this new type of
diplomacy with that prevalent before 1914, Sir Harold Nicolson
points out where the danger lies: —

The main distinction, therefore, between the methods of the new and
those of the old diplomacy is that the former aims at satisfying the
immediate wishes of the electorate, whereas the latter was concerned
only with the ultimate interests of the nation. It is, very largely, a
difference in the time available. The old diplomatist, negotiating as an
expert with fellow experts, was able to approach his problems in a
scientific spirit, with due deliberation, and without regard to im-
mediate popular support. Such a system was obviously open to abuse
and danger. Yet democratic diplomacy is exposed to its own peculiar
maladies which, in that they are less apparent, are even more insidious.
In its desire to conciliate popular feeling it is apt to subordinate
principle to expediency, to substitute the indefinite for the precise, to
prefer in place of the central problem (which is often momentarily
insoluble) subsidiary issues upon which immediate agreement, and
therefore immediate popular approval, can be attained.-

This is the other aspect of open diplomacy as conceived by the
Labour Party. But Sir Winston Churchill makes it plain that no one
political party was responsible.

. . . Delight in smooth-sounding platitudes, refusal to face unpleasant
facts, desire for popularity and electoral success irrespective of the
vital interests of the State, genuine love of peace and pathetic belief
that love can be its sole foundation, obvious lack of intellectual vigour
in both leaders of the British Coalition Government . . . the strong and
violent pacifism which at this time dominated the Labour-Socialist
Party, the utter devotion of the Liberals to sentiment apart from reality
. . . the whole supported by overwhelming majorities in both Houses
of Parliament: all these constituted a picture of British fatuity and
fecklessness which, though devoid of guile, was not devoid of guilt,
and, though free from wickedness or evil design, played a definite part
in the unleashing upon the world of horrors and miseries which, even

' British Labour^ s Foreign Policy. Elaine Windrich. Stanford, California, 1952. p. 32.
" Nicolson. op. cit. pp. 185-186.

248 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

SO far as they have unfolded, are already beyond comparison in human
experience.^

These are grave words and written by one who, perhaps beyond
any other, is in a position to know the facts.

So much for the methods. What of the aims? In dealing with these
it becomes necessary to ignore the period before 1933. It was an
epoch, for the democratic states, of a rather unpractical idealism,
exemplified (to take one instance) by the Kellogg Pact of 1928, which
either meant the millenium had come or else meant nothing at all. By
1933, however (or at latest by 1934) the 'disarmament' period was
over and Adolf Hitler was already in power. Thenceforward it be-
comes more possible to discover what the Britishaimsweresupposedto
be. One principle of British foreign policy has always been to oppose
whatever Power threatens to become dominant in Europe. By 1934
that Power was, for the second time, Germany. To keep Germany in
its place an alliance was needed of Great Britain and France with
Russia or Italy or both. Nor was this theoretically impossible.
Hitler's hatred of Russia was known. Mussolini's anxiety to maintain
Austrian independence was known. But such an alliance required,
to begin with, the strong and consistent support of Great Britain and
France. And French policy was not even consistent with itself. On
the one hand, France had made alliance with Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia and Roumania. On the other hand, the money which
should have been spent on mobile forces (if the French alliance was
to help the Czechs) was spent from 1930 on the static defences of the
Maginot Line. These defences, if completed, might or might not have
saved France: they could not have saved the Little Entente. Great
Britain was filled, by contrast, with high-minded people who at the
same time denounced Germany, denounced Italy and opposed re-
armament.

When a feeble government proposed to strengthen the Royal Air
Force in July, 1934, the Labour and Liberal Parties moved a vote of
censure. Mr. Attlee denied the need for more aircraft and denied that
greater strength would make for peace. Mr. Winston Churchill
reminded the house that 'our weakness does not only involve our-
selves; our weakness involves also the stability of Europe'. He also
pointed out that the Labour and Liberal parties and press were
foremost in abuse of Germany.

. . . But these criticisms are fiercely resented by the powerful men who
have Germany in their hands. So that we are to disarm our friends, we
are to have no allies, we are to affront powerful nations, and we are to
neglect our own defences entirely. That is a miserable and perilous
situation. -

' The Second World [Var. Winston S. Churchill. Vol. \. pp. 69-70.
^ Churchill, op. cit. Vol. I. pp. 92-93.

DEMOCRACY IN DECLINE 249

It was to become more perilous still. For Italy, seeing that there was
nothing to fear from France or Britain, invaded Abyssinia in 1935
and drove high-minded Englishmen into still more startling incon-
sistency. Mr. Attlee demanded 'effective sanctions, effectively applied'
against Italy, while maintaining that 'We think that you have to go
forward to disarmament. . . .' Earlier in the same year the League of
Nations Union had organised a Peace Ballot in which over ten
million people by demanding reduction of armaments, gave a mis-
leading impression of their views to the rest of the world. ^ Mussolini,
thinking the British negligible, decided to look for friends elsewhere.
At this stage there was something to be said for conciliating him as
Hoare and Laval wanted to do; and more for sinking the Italian fleet
as others would have preferred; but the policy chosen combined all
that was dangerous in either alternative. Next year, in 1936, the
Spanish Civil War, in which a now hostile Italy was involved, offered
a splendid opportunity for an agreement with Russia. The chance
was missed and the end of the war found Britain on bad terms with
Germany, Italy, Russia and, for that matter, Spain.
Throughout this period, however, of recurring crises, Britain and
France had one loyal ally, not a great power but a firm friend, and
that was Czechoslovakia. At Munich in 1938 that one ally was
abandoned, betrayed by France with British connivance and despite
the protest of Russia. Churchill denied at the time 'that security can
be obtained by throwing a small State to the wolves'- but that was
exactly what Chamberlain had agreed to do. By snubbing Russia he
played into Hitler's hands, preparing the way for the later agreement
between Russia and Germany. By sacrificing Czechoslovakia he
demonstrated just what the Franco-British alliance was worth to any
other potential ally. By the same act he threw away the Czech Army
and the Skoda armaments factory. He threw away, finally, a year;
delaying the inevitable war by a period during which German strength
increased far more rapidly than British.^ Having done this. Chamber-
lain returned to have his policy endorsed by an overwhelming majority
in the House'' and by a still larger majority of the British public.

It is not to our present purpose to draw up an indictment of indi-
viduals or political parties. The object is merely to show that one
leading principle of British foreign policy — a principle firmly adhered
to throughout most of three centuries — a principle vindicated afresh
in 1914 — was reversed during the period from 1933 to 1939. It was
reversed by a democratically elected government, reversed with
popular approval, reversed with the full consent of Parliament. This

' 'Its name overshadowed its purpose'. Churchill, op. cit. Vol. I. p. 232.

' Churchill, op. cit. p. 238.

' See Churchill, op. cit. pp. 262-265.

' By 366 votes to 144.

250 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

principle is only one of several. It is chosen for illustration here be-
cause it exemplifies the specific dangers of democratic rule; the re-
fusal to abide by agreements, the refusal to pay for defence, the ready
betrayal of allies and the failure to combine with others against a
common danger. Said Disraeli 'you will in due season submit to peace
ignominiously sought and ignominiously obtained' and events were
to justify his prophecy. Democrats have claimed that the will of the
people is always right. But can it be the will of a people to prepare
their own destruction?

CHAPTER XX

The Caudillos

DICTATORSHIP is the natural sequel to the anarchy which
results, very often, from the collapse of democratic rule.
Dictatorship is usually, however, by its nature a short-lived experi-
ment, limited to a single lifetime and giving way to another form of
rule. Were we to judge from the history of dictatorships in the ancient
world, we should conclude that the dictator is raised to his pedestal
by fairly general consent. Once there, he cannot descend for fear of
his enemies; nor do others want him to descend, for fear of renewed
confusion. So he remains in power until his death, not necessarily
attributable to old age. There is a marked tendency for dictatorship
to turn into monarchy, and this trend appears again in modern
history. The career of Oliver Cromwell is thus very true to pattern.
Towards the end of his life it was obvious that monarchy had to be
revived, whether with Cromwell as king or under Charles II restored.
There was a phase of doubt as to who the king should be but none
about the need for monarchy as such. And just as Cromwell prepared
the way for Charles II, so did Napoleon prepare the way for Louis
XVI 1 1. His intention was to found a new dynasty but, failing in that,
he merely ensured the restoration of the old. There is much evidence,
in fact, to suggest that dictatorship is likely to be only a temporary
expedient in a State with any tradition of unity. Dictatorship as a
recurrent pattern of rule would seem more characteristic of States in
which no such unity exists and in which monarchy is, for some
reason, difficult to establish.

\ All modern dictatorship owes its inspiration to Simon Bolivar and,
through him, to Napoleon. It is to South America that we must look,
in the first instance, for dictatorship introduced and perpetuated as
an admitted necessity; defended by thinkers of integrity and seen by
historians as a positive good. This attitude towards dictatorship
must be understood, however, in relation to its geographical and
economic setting. South America has offered to its rulers a political
problem which was initially almost insoluble. The continent is vast,
largely tropical and jungle-covered, climatically exhausting to the
immigrant, broken by mountains and periodically afflicted by
hurricanes, earthquakes and floods. Its original Inca and Aztec rulers
had been able, nevertheless, to organise the stable monarchies which

251

252 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

the Spaniards found there in about 1500. Some three centuries of
Spanish colonial rule reduced the Indian population from perhaps
twenty-five million to about nine million in the early nineteenth
century. By the same period the Creole white or semi-white population
amounted to five million, thinly spread over an enormous territory.
The Spanish social and political structure was aristocratic, all power
being vested in the officials and higher clergy from Spain and the
resident horse-riding landowners of Spanish descent. These ruled
over a listless and improvident population of serfs and slaves. There
was little or no middle class because of the rigid commercial restric-
tions which monopolised some trades and forbade others. Of intel-
lectual activity there was very little sign.

If some South American handicaps were attributable to nature,
others were certainly attributable to Spain.

Spanish America received a poor heritage from the mother country:
a class system, little experience in self-government, a wealthy, powerful
and intolerant established church, intellectual repression, and a poor,
illiterate and superstitious population. . . .^

Upon this practically medieval world there burst suddenly the
potent ideas of nationality, independence, secularism, democracy
and freedom. The Creoles were to experience the Reformation, the
American War of Independence and the French Revolution. They
were to experience them, moreover, at the same time, adding (for the
sake of variety) some scenes borrowed from the Wars of the Roses
and others from the America of Bulfalo Bill. Theirs was a history in
which St. Dominic, Don Quixote, Garibaldi, John of Gaunt and Al
Capone were all contemporaries and at variance with each other.
Their swiftly-moving drama passed abruptly from the cloister to the
wild-west saloon, from the world of Francis Drake to the world of
Jeremy Bentham. Nor was their confusion merely of the mind. Their
wars of liberation lasted fourteen years, leaving three million
exhausted and impoverished Creoles, free now from Spanish rule, to
govern themselves as well as they might. They were full of new ideas
but without experience of administration. They were full of noble
aspirations but had no money at all.

From the confused story of the Wars of Liberation there emerges
the one great reputation; that of Simon Bolivar. He was of aristo-
cratic birth, brought up at Caracas in the Vice-Royalty of New
Granada.

If he had not been a great horseman, he would never have reached
his goal, would never have held his own in battle, on mountain paths
and mountain passes, and, in spite of all the noble feelings which later
moved him to ever-greater deeds of daring, would never have become

' Historic Evolution of Hispanic America. J. Fred Rippy. New York, 1932. p. 336.

THE CAUDILLOS 253

a man of action. A horseman, and only a horseman, could become the
liberator of the plains and mountains of South America.^

_[His education, begun in South America, was continued in Spain
(1800-1801) and later in the France of the Consulate. He admired
Napoleon as a soldier, as the hero of the Republic, as the genius of
freedom. He had no use for him as Emperor and would not even
attend the coronation, considering him from that moment a tyrant
and a bar to progress. His education was completed in Milan and
Rome, where he probably met Lamartine, Madame de Stael,
Chateaubriand and (possibly) Lord Byron. He returned to South
America at the age of twenty-three, having read widely and met many
of the distinguished men and women of the day. He was familiar
with the works of Spinoza, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Machiavelli,
Voltaire and Hobbes. Returning to his ancestral home, he was there
when the news arrived of Napoleon's conquest of Spain. Venezuela
was declared an independent state in 1810. Bolivar's military career
began soon afterwards and in 1812 he set out, with five hundred men,
to liberate South America from all that remained of Spanish rule.

Most of what followed is not to the present purpose. What is
significant is his answer to the problem created by his military success.
How was South America to be governed? He dreamt at one time of a
united continent, even of the two Americas forming a single state
with a capital at the Isthmus of Panama. This was fantasy. When he
liberated Venezuela, however, he proclaimed it a republic and
summoned a Congress at Angostura. His opening speech to the
delegates has survived and is proof of the close attention he had paid
to political theory.

. . . Nature endows us with the desire for freedom at our birth, yet men,
whether from apathy or inborn inclination, suffer the chains laid upon
them. It is a terrible truth that it costs more strength to maintain
freedom than to endure the weight of tyranny. Many nations, past and
present, have borne that yoke; few have made use of the happy
moments of freedom and have preferred to relapse with all speed into
their errors. For it is people rather than systems which lead to tyranny.
The habit of subjection makes them less susceptible to the beauty of
honour and progress, and they look unmoved on the glory of living in
liberty under self-made laws. But are there any democratic govern-
ments which have combined power, prosperity and long life? Was it
not rather aristocracy and monarchy which created the great and
durable empires? Is there any empire older than China? What
republic ever lasted longer than Sparta or Venice? Did the Roman
Empire not conquer the world and the French monarchy last for
fourteen hundred years ?^

' Bolivar, the life of on Idealist. Emil Ludwig. Trans, by M. H. Lindsay. London, 1947.
' Ludwig. op. cit. pp. 149-50.

254 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Bolivar became President under the new constitution of a State in
which his military power was already supreme. He saw himself as
'a predestined man' and added 'The man is a fool who mistakes the
blessings which Providence pours on his head. At this very moment
we are beloved of God and must not leave His gifts unused!'^

After an absence of five years, Bolivar returned to Colombia to
find it torn by intrigues, some wanting to make him king, some
wanting to depose him altogether. He replied in public:

'The voice of the nation has forced supreme power upon me. 1 shall
abhor that office to my dying day, for it is the cause of suspicion that I
am aiming at the crown. Who can imagine me so blinded that I could
desire to descend! Do these men not know that the name of Libertador
is more glorious than any throne? Colombians! I have once more
taken the yoke upon me, for in time of danger it would be hypocrisy,
not modesty, to shirk it. But if my action means anything else than that
I wish to safeguard the rights of the people, let no man count on me!'^

He wrote, however, to Paez:

I am weary of this way of life and desire nothing but my release. I
tremble lest I may descend from the heights to which fortune has
raised my name. I never wished for power. It used to oppress me; now
it is killing me. But Columbia moves my heart. I see our work being
destroyed and future centuries passing verdict upon us as the culprits.
That is why I remain in the place to which the voice of the people has
called me. . . .^

Not only did he remain in that position. He came to see that a
dictatorship was needed and that the constitution must, if necessary,
be ignored. He wrote in that sense to Santander.

The dictatorship must bring a total reform with it. Our organization
is an excess of ill-applied power, and hence harmful. You know that I
find administration, sedentary work, tedious. Dictatorship is in vogue;
it will be popular. The soldiers want coercion and the people pro-
vincial independence. In such confusion, a dictatorship unites the
whole. If the nation would authorize me, I could do everything. You
speak of a monarchy . . . am I now to descend to a throne? Your letter
hurts me. If you want to see me again, never speak again of a crown.*

Bolivar was dictator of Colombia for eighteen months, 'the
supreme leader chosen by the people, but neither a tyrant nor a
despot'. He saw clearly what had to be done but also saw that 'there
is one great difficulty in our way'. 'Colombia' he wrote, 'is perishing
because its leader is not ambitious enough'. He had too little love of
power, too great a dislike of tyranny. When the last Spaniards had

' Ludwig. op. cit. p. 176.
^ Ibid. p. 256.
■■' Ibkl. pp. 257-258.
' Ibid. p. 262.

THE CAUDILLOS 255

been driven from South America, the liberated repubhcs fell into
confusion, fighting each other and fighting within themselves.
Bolivar narrowly escaped assassination and listened afresh to those
who urged importing royalty from Europe. He decided that it was
impossible.

Who is there to become King of Colombia? No prince will come
from abroad to take over a country in this state of anarchy as a
hereditary monarchy without guarantees. Debts and poverty cannot
support princes and courts. Further, the lowest class would fall into
destitution and would dread inequality, while the generals and
ambitious men in all classes would not be prepared to lose their
power. A country dependent on an individual runs a gambler's risk
every day. . . . No European prince will mount these royal gallows.^

Nor would he mount it himself. He resigned office in 1830 and died
shortly afterwards, summing up his career with the words 'There
have been three great fools in history: Jesus, Don Quixote and 1'.

The basic trouble in South America was, of course, religious. The
rising against Spain had been spontaneous, uniting most of the
Creoles against an outside domination. It was headed by men of
liberal views, fired by the example of America and inspired by doc-
trines from France. But these were fundamentally opposed by others
who, while wanting liberation, were in all other respects conservative.
Against visionary anti-clericals were arrayed catholic and slave-
owning aristocrats with a Spanish dislike for government in any form.
With a poor and illiterate population and with this lack of unity
among the politically active, a monarchy was the only possible
solution. But monarchy was detested by the liberals who had headed
the revolt. Bolivar saw the practical need for kingship but would not
renounce all his republican views in order to be crowned. How could
he who had been too shocked to attend Napoleon's coronation now
accept a crown for himself? He could see that the constitutions being
drawn up by the liberals, 'the inventions of well-meaning vision-
aries','^ were utterly futile but he could see no alternative but dictator-
ship. He died leaving the problem unresolved.

What followed was a prolonged period of political instability
throughout South America; phases of disorder alternating with
phases of dictatorship. Few of the dictators have had anything like
Bolivar's political scruples.

The South American dictator is the caudillo or military leader,
leader of a party; sometimes leader of an intellectual group, more
often leader of a military class. Politics were confused in the nine-

' Ludwig. op. cit. p. 295. The fate of Maximilian was to show that Bolivar was right
in this as in so much else.

- The Evolution of Modern Latin America. R. A. Humphreys. Oxford, 1946. See
p. 79 et seq.

256 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

teenth century by the mutual hostility of landowner and peasant,
oligarch and half-breed, catholic and secularist, country and town.
Sierra and seacoast, military and civil.

Each party supports a leader, an interest, a dogma; on the one side
a man beholds his own party, the missionaries of truth and culture;
the others are his enemies, mercenary and corrupt. Each group
believes that it seeks to retain the supremacy in the name of dis-
interested virtue and patriotism. Rosas used to call his opponents
'infamous savages'. For the gang in possession of power, the revolu-
tionaries are malefactors; for the latter the ruling party are merely a
government of thieves and tyrants. There are gods of good and evil, as
in the Oriental theogonies. Educated in the Roman Church, Ameri-
cans bring into politics the absolutism of religious dogmas; they have
no conception of toleration. The dominant party prefers to annihilate
its adversaries. . . .'

Revolutions have followed one after another. The Republic of
Bolivia had sixty revolts, ten constitutions and six presidents assas-
sinated between 1826 and 1898. Peru had forty revolts and fifteen
constitutions in about the same length of time. Ecuador had twenty-
three dictators in about eighty years, Venezuela had fifty-two risings
in seventy years.- The Dominican Republic had forty-three presidents
in seventy-two years. Mexico had eight revolutions and thirty-seven
governments between 1828 and 1867. Chile had three constitutions
and ten governments in seven years, five revolutions between 1827 and
1829. Throughout South America the pattern was much the same.
The aristocracy of the hacienda was allied with the church against
the liberals — the Whites versus the Reds, the 'Bigwigs' versus the
Radicals. There was no stability except under the more successful
dictators. Thus, Rosas ruled Argentina for twenty-three years,
Francia ruled Paraguay for twenty-six years, Gomez ruled Venezuela
for twenty-seven years and Diaz ruled Mexico for thirty-four. Some
of these dictators ruled extremely well — Cardenas, Pardo,'' Blanco
and Juarez for example — while others ruled badly. But everyone
could see that even a bad dictator was preferable to the periods of
anarchy which followed each dictator's death. The one exception to
the rule was Brazil. There a monarchy had been established in 1824,
providing peace until 1889. Then a bloodless revolution led to the
establishment of a Republic in 1891. The sequel is as significant as
the earlier part of the story, for Brazil came under a dictatorship in
1930 and was ruled very competently by Vargas until 1945.

It is difficult to make a coherent story out of events in their nature
so confused. But it would be roughly true to say that most of the

' Latin America: its rise and progress. F. G. Caldcron. London, 1919. p. 369.

^ Ihicl. p. 103 et scq.

'Peru. C. R. Enock. London, 1925.

THE CAUDILLOS 257

South American Republics were still experiencing alternate dictator-
ship and chaos in 1850. By 1870 there was a slight tendency towards
more settled administration, a reflection of democratic trends in
Europe. This tendency became more marked after 1900 as the
influence of the United States was established over Cuba and
Panama. At much the same time South America was becoming a
principal source of grain and meat for the European market. Ameri-
can capital began to be invested in Brazil and Peru and British
capital in the Argentine.

Between 1913 and 1929 the history of Latin America was charac-
terized by important political and social changes and notable material
progress. In several countries the middle and lower classes became
more assertive and exercised no little influence over governmental
policy. In others strong executives revealed greater interest in the
masses and inaugurated systems of social welfare under state control.
Of the seven new constitutions framed in as many countries, at least
five were significant because of their provisions with reference to
labor; and everywhere the period was marked by unprecedented social
legislation.^

Growing prosperity in 1914-18, in creating a new middle class,
hurried South America on from dictatorship to democracy and from
democracy to socialism. By 1920 Chile, for example, had a vastly
expanded and burdensome civil service. More or less socialistic legis-
lation characterised the period from 1920 to 1925 and the various left
wing parties then gained considerable influence during that period. -
Socialism was also attempted in other States, notably in Uruguay
from 1903 and (after 1911) in Mexico. But socialism, and even
democracy, rested upon insecure foundations. The population was
racially mixed and the Indians were still living in the Middle Ages.^
Progress had been far too rapid and superficial. The result was that
the trade depression of 1930-31 brought about revolutions in twelve
out of twenty Latin American republics. Following a period of chaos
there was a general return to dictatorship. Chile was ahead of the
fashion in having Carlos Ibafiez as dictator in 1927. Brazil had
Vargas as dictator from 1930, Mexico had Cardenas from 1934.
Uruguay had a dictatorship from 1933 and Guatemala from 1931.
I n the Argentine, one of the most prosperous states, there was dictator-
ship from 1931 almost to the present day."* By 1930, incidentally,

' Historical Evolution of Hispanic America. J. Fred Rippy. New York, 1932. p. 272.

'' Chile: an outline of its geography, economics and politics. G. J. Butland. London,
1951. p. 42 et seq.

^ See Rippy. op. cit. p. 433 et seq. In 1929 there were in South America 34 milhon
white people, 30 million mixed, 26 million negroes and mulattoes and 20 million
Indians.

^ Juan Peron, the recent dictator, became President in 1946 and followed the
example of the European dictators rather than that of previous Caudillos. It is interest-
ing that the Argentine should have had a dictatorship before, during and after the Hitler
period of 20th Century Europe.

258 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Europe was beginning to follow South American precedent, produc-
ing new theories to justify what had for long been the established
practice in Colombia, Paraguay, Bolivia and Ecuador. Nor was the
South American example unnoticed by European critics of democ-
racy. Francia, for example, dictator of Paraguay from 1813 to 1840,
was particularly admired, as was Diaz later on.

When he died Francia was mourned by his people, a people about to
reveal in warfare a Spartan tenacity, a tranquil heroism. . . . Francia
had formed a proud and warlike race. He was the most extraordinary
man the world had seen for a hundred years, said Carlyle in one of his
Essays — a Dominican ripe for canonisation, an excellent superior of
Jesuits, a rude and atrabilious Grand Inquisitor. The Scottish historian
praises the grim silences of Francia — 'The grim unspeakabilities' —
that mute solitude in which remarkable men commune with the
mystery of things.^

The fact that South America raced through so much political
experience in so short a time must not blind us to the nature of the
process. Monarchy was what most of the States needed and it was to
dictatorship (as a substitute for monarchy) that most of the States
continually returned. There are grounds for believing that, without
an initial period of monarchy, the later development of democracy is
not even possible; not, at least, in a State of any size or any diversity
of population.

Resembling each other in language and race, and in the general
nature of their problems, the South American Republics are a sort
of modern equivalent of the Greek City States. They have presented,
at different times, examples of nearly every form of rule. It is to be
expected, therefore, that they should have produced their own
political theorists, profiting by so many object lessons, so many tales
of success and failure. Nor is such an expectation disappointed in the
event. Most of the theorists were liberals, teaching the doctrines of
Bentham, Toqueville and John Stuart Mill. Many were more or less
influenced by Alphonse Lamartine (1790-1869), especially after the
revolution in France of 1848. Chief of the liberal theorists was
Lastarria of Chile but after him came Bilbao, founder of the Society
of Equality, exiled for blasphemy and sedition. Montalvo in Ecuador
was of the same school of thought, an opponent of the Church, but
an admirer of Christianity. He was also, however, and significantly,
an admirer of Bolivar, whom he compares with Napoleon rather to
the latter's disadvantage. From Montalvo we learn something of the
way in which the best of the Caudillos were regarded in his day.
Writing of Napoleon but thinking more of Bolivar, he says:

^ Latin America, its rise and progress. F. G. Calderon. Trans, by B. Miall. London,
1919. p. 195. See also Paraguay. W. H. Koebel. London, 1919. Chap. X. (pp. 164-179).

THE CAUDILLOS 259

In Napoleon there is something more than in other men; a sense, a
wheel in the mechanism of understanding, a fibre in the heart. He looks
across the world from the Apennines to the Pillars of Hercules, from
the pyramids of Egypt to the snows of Russia. Kings tremble, pallid,
and half-lifeless; thrones crack and crumble; the nations look up and
regard him and are afraid, and bend the knee before the giant. ^

He thus comes near to being an apologist of dictatorship. That
could not be said of Vigil or Sarmiento, liberal thinkers respectively
of Peru and the Argentine. All these looked chiefly to France for
their ideas and others, between 1848 and 1858, regarded Lamartine
as a 'demi-god, a second Moses'. They quoted with approval his
saying that democracy is, in principle, the direct reign of God; the
application of Christian ideas to the world of politics." Almost alone
among these theorists was Alberdi, who pleaded for monarchy.

'The Republic has been and is still the bread of Presidents, the trade
of soldiers, the industry of lawyers without causes, and journalists
without talent; the refuge of the second-rate of every species, and the
machine for the amalgamation of all the dross of society.'^

It is a fair description and Calderon adds his comment that 'amid
the sterile enthusiasm of romantic politicians his book stands out, in
its gravity, sobriety, common sense, and realism, like a lesson for all
time'.* It was not however a lesson that his countrymen were willing
to learn. Neither, on the other hand, have European political theorists
shown much interest as yet in the experience or the political thought
of South America.'^ In the histories of the future the ideas of Lastarria,
Montalvo and Alberdi would seem to deserve at least as much space
as we now devote to those of Tom Paine or Graham Wallas.

' Calderon. op. cit. Sec Chap. I. Book V. (pp. 235-248).
' I hid. p. 244.
-■' Ihkl. p. 246.
^ Ihid. p. 247.

'•See, however, Dictatorship. Its History and Theory. A Cobban. London, 1939.
pp. 144-159.

CHAPTER XXI

Twentieth Century Dictatorship

THROUGHOUT the first half of the present century dictatorship
has been, beyond dispute, the characteristic form of rule.
Thinkers of the Enghsh-speaking world have tended, it is true, to
consider dictatorship as no more than a momentary deviation from
the path towards democracy. They attribute just the same permanence
to democratic government that their forefathers attributed in turn to
monarchy and aristocracy. But there is no particular reason for sup-
posing that democracy will last any longer than the earlier forms of
rule; and historical analogy would incline us rather to doubt whether
it will even last as long. Predictions, however, are not to the present
purpose. The plain fact is that democracy passed its peak of popu-
larity in about 1918.' There was a moment at the end of the First
World War when monarchies had collapsed in Germany, Austria
and Russia and when the fate of the world was to be decided by the
United States, the British Empire and France. The future was to be
made safe for democracy. At that very moment the first of the new
totalitarian states was founded in Russia by Lenin and the second
in Poland by Jozef Pilsudski, who remained in office until his death
in 1935. It was the beginning of a landslide.

It was Italy that now led the way, Mussolini becoming dictator
there in 1922. Dictatorships were founded thereafter in this order:
Spain (1923), Turkey (1923), Chile (1927), Greece (1928), Brazil
(1930), Dominican Republic (1930), Argentine (1931), Guatemala
(1931), Portugal (1932), Uruguay (1933), Austria (1933), Germany
(1933), Mexico (1934), Greece (again, in 1936), and France (1940).
The student confronted by this list must find it difficult to talk of the
inevitable progress of nations towards parliamentary rule with
universal suff'rage. Nor must he forget that there were significant
tendencies towards dictatorship in countries which finally opposed
the trend. As against that it may be argued that the triumph of the
English-speaking peoples in 1945, with the collapse of the dictator-
ships involved in the Second World War, showed that democracy

' It is perhaps significant that Oswald Spengler's booic The Decline of the West
appeared in 1918 and had an instant and widespread circulation; as much perhaps on
the strength of its title as on its contents. Some ninety thousand copies were sold in a
few years and it was translated into many languages. See Social Philosophies of an age
of Crisis. P. A. Sorokin. London, 1952. Chap. IV. p. 72 ci. scq.

260

TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTATORSHIP 261

was very much alive. The trend should accordingly have been re-
versed. In point of fact, however, the trend has continued, with new
dictatorships set up in Rumania (1940), Yugoslavia (1944), the Argen-
tine (1946), Nationalist China (1946), Paraguay (1947), Thailand
(1947), Peru (1948), Communist China (1949), Vietnam (1949),
Venezuela (1952), Egypt (1952), Cuba (1952) and Colombia (1953).
No exact statistics are possible, for a dictatorship is not easy to define,
but there are grounds for supposing that dictatorship is still on the
increase and might extend at any time to such countries as Indonesia
and South Africa.

There is room for disagreement about the details of this general
tendency. Was Lenin a dictator? Was Venizelos? But there can be
no question, surely, that the tendency exists. There may be more
democracies than ever, and more still to be created as a result of
colonial territories becoming autonomous. The nineteenth century
liberal impetus has not been lost in the more remote parts of the
world. But the surge of these distant waves is clearly the result of a
central movement that has itself ceased. Democracy died long ago
as a creed and an inspiration. It died in the middle of the First World
War, just before the moment of its apparent triumph.

The question, whether men will rise towards the higher standard
which the prophets of democracy deemed possible has been exercising
every thoughtful mind since August 1914. and it will be answered less
hopefully now than it would have been at any time in the hundred
years preceding. That many millions of men should perish in a strife
which brought disasters to the victors only less than those it brought to
the vanquished is an event without parallel in the annals of the race.
There has probably been since the fifth century no moment in history
which has struck mankind with such terror and dismay as have the
world-wide disasters which began in 1914, and have not yet passed
away. The explanations of the facts are no more cheering than the
facts themselves. . . . Knowledge has been accumulated, the methods
and instruments of research have been improved . . . but the mental
powers of the individual man have remained stationary, no stronger,
no wider in their range, than they were thousands of years ago, and
the supremely great who are fit to grapple with the vast problems
which the growth of population and the advances of science have
created come no more frequently, and may fail to appear just when
they are most needed.^

So wrote James Bryce in a book published in 1929, compiled
before the trade depression had even begun. And there can be no
doubt that he was right. The liberals lost their faith when they
discovered that democracies can kill. Democracy, which had been
thought to provide the answer to all problems, had already been found

• Modern Democracies. James Bryce (Viscount Bryce). 2 Vols. London, 1929. Vol. IF.
p. 667.

262 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

lacking the answer to one; the problem of war. It was soon to be
found equally devoid of an answer to a second problem; the problem
of peace. But even before that second discovery the institution had
begun to collapse. To quote Bryce again: —

In the form which it has almost everywhere taken, that of govern-
ment by a representative assembly, democracy shows signs of decay;
for the reputation and moral authority of elected legislatures, although
these, being indispensable, must remain, have been declining in almost
every country. In some they are deemed to have shown themselves
unequal to their tasks, in others to have yielded to temptations, in
others to be too subservient to party, while in all they have lost some
part of the respect and social deference formerly accorded to them.
Whither, then, has gone so much of the power as may have departed
from them? In some countries it would seem to be passing to the
Cabinet — England is often cited as an example — in others to the
directly elected Head of the State, as for instance to the Governors in
the several States of the American Union. In France, though there has
been no definite change, calls are heard for a strong President, and in
Argentina the President already overtops the Chambers. What is
common to all these cases is the disposition to trust one man or a few
led by one, rather than an elected assembly.'

Writing a decade later and writing in fervent defence of democracy,
Eduard Benes had to admit that the democratic governments had been
widely criticised.

The deficiencies, weaknesses, and of course great mistakes of the
individual democracies, which it was apparently impossible to avoid,
are the third category of facts which played a specially important role
in the downfall of European democracies. There were the excesses of
the party system, its mistakes and exaggerations; the slowness and
inefficiency of democratic methods of work and leadership during
times of crises and at moments when quick actions and quick decisions
were necessary; the partiality, corruption and incapacity of bureau-
cracy, subjugated very often to the exaggerated party spirit; the
deficiencies, mediocrity and mistakes of the democratic leaders. -

If Benes was aware of such criticism, others without his democratic
idealism were still more ready to see where democracy had failed.
These others had as their basic motive a dislike of the socialism (or
communism) to which democracy — except in a small and simple
community — was obviously bound to lead. We read in Mein Kampf
that Adolf Hitler (then aged nineteen) attended the Chamber of
Deputies at Vienna for a year. Critical from the first, he listened to
confused debates at which everyone shouted. He also listened to
bored debates when scarcely anyone was there. He finally concluded

' Brycc. op. cit. VoL II. p. 632.

- Democracy Today and Tomorrow. E. Bcncs. London, 1939. p. 61.

TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTATORSHIP 263

that 'the institution itself was wrong in its very essence and form'.
Merely to abolish it, on the one hand, would be to reinstate the
Habsburgs in absolute power. To leave it in existence, on the other
hand, would be to open the gates to socialism.

Democracy, as practised in Western Europe to-day, is the fore-
runner of Marxism. In fact the latter would not be conceivable without
the former. Democracy is the breeding-ground in which the bacilli of
the Marxist world pest can grow and spread. By the introduction of
parliamenlarianism democracy produced an abortion of filth and fire,
the creative fire of which, however, seems to have died out.^

To abolish parliament without restoring monarchy could only
mean finding a form of rule different from either. Hitler was typical
of many in wondering whether some form of dictatorship might not
be preferable. In their opposition to social democracy these middle-
class spokesmen were neither more nor less selfish than the trades-
unionists they sought to oppose. They could point, moreover, to
very real defects in democratic governments of the day. They could
find valid reasons for advocating a form of government which might
seem, at the outset, more efficient. It is essential to realise that dic-
tatorship was not merely imposed by military force. That there was
normally an element of violence in the process by which the dictators
gained power is true. There was also, however, considerable support
from the public at large; and without that support the rise of most
dictators would scarcely have been possible.

Not all dictators came into power on the heels of a collapsing
socialist democracy. Some were installed, as we shall see, in countries
where democracy was hardly known. But the tendency for dictator-
ship to succeed democracy, after a period of confusion, was exempli-
fied in several countries of which Italy was perhaps the f.rst. Italy had
shown liberal-labour tendencies in 1912-14 which were checked
momentarily when Italy entered the war against Germany and
Austria. Overwhelming defeat followed at Caporetto in October,
1917. Rallying quickly the Italians managed, with Allied help, to
defeat the Austrians in 1918 at Vittorio Veneto. They afterwards
convinced themselves that they had won the war, being cheated by
the French and British of their proper reward. They had been deceived
by President Wilson. Their own assessment of their contribution to
victory differed sharply from the assessment of others and Baron
Sonnino had little success, therefore, in his efforts to sustain the
Italian claims. The government was discredited by that failure and
the Socialists began to recruit masses of adherents from among the
disillusioned and resentful. The Socialist Party had opposed the war

' Mein Kampf. Adolf Hitler. Trans, by James Murphy. 2 Vols. London, 1939. Vol. I.
p. 78.

264 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

and its members could now regard it as a virtual defeat; just such a
defeat, in fact, as had preceded the revolution in Russia. Impressed
by this analogy, the Socialist Party affiliated to the Communist
International in March, 1919, before achieving a striking success in
the General Election of November. The Socialists won, it is true,
only 156 seats out of 508. They were, nevertheless, the strongest single
party, supported by a third of the voters and gaining a proportionate
control in local government. Rather surprised by their own success,
the Socialist leaders failed to grasp their opportunity. Uttering the
slogan 'The Revolution is not made. The Revolution comes', ^ they
allowed their movement to spend itself in pointless demonstrations.
Climax to a period of confusion was the occupation of the North
Italian factories in September, 1920. In the course of this episode half
a million workers were in possession of six hundred factories, with
armed guards posted and elected committees in control. Nor did they
withdraw until promised a twenty per cent wage increase and a share
in the future management.

Now was the moment for revolution.

Had the leaders of the General Confederation of Labour and of the
Socialist Party wished to strike a decisive blow, here was the oppor-
tunity. . . . The bankers, the big industrialists and big landlords waited
for the social revolution as sheep wait to be led to the slaughter. If a
Communist revolution could be brought about by the bewilderment
and cowardice on the part of the ruling classes, the Italian people in
September, 1920, could have made as many Communist revolutions
as they wished.^

This was proved by the earlier events in 1920 — railway strikes,
agricultural strikes in Ferrara and Lombardy, rioting in the streets
and even fisticuffs in Parliament. The government headed by Nitti
and later by Giolitti was composed of liberal pacifists who had in

1919 agreed to improve the universal suffrage (introduced in 1912)
by proportional representation. They were faced in consequence with
a variety of political parties. These did not include the Fascisti, how-
ever, who failed at this time to win a single seat. Giolitti met the
situation in the factories by a policy of inaction and the workers
realised that they must either stage a revolution or retreat from their
position. They shrank from a Communist Revolution (many being
Catholics) and so lost the initiative.

It was during the lull which followed the workers' withdrawal in

1920 that the reaction began. Failing actual revolution, it was
inevitable that the professional classes, ex-officers and students
should rally to defend themselves. The Fascist party, opposed to

'■ Fascism and Social Revohilion. R. Palme Dutt. London, 1934. p. 97.
- G. Salvemini, quoted in R. Palme Dutt. op. cit. p. 98.

TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTATORSHIP 265

Communism, attacked and burnt the Labour Party headquarters
at Bologna in January, 1921. Encouraged by this success (and more by
the failure of the police to interfere), people of wealth began to contri-
bute to Fascist funds. Membership of the party, insignificant in 1920,
rose to 248,000 in the following year. Between January and April,
1921, the Fascists attacked and destroyed Labour Party Offices and
Clubs, inflicting and sustaining casualties and gaining further sup-
port. In the elections of May, 1921, only 35 Fascists were elected as
against 122 Socialists and 16 Communists. It was not, however, by
votes that the Fascists could hope to win. Following Giolitti's resig-
nation in July, 1921, the liberals lost any cohesion they had ever had.
By November the Fascists had drawn up a programme and a creed,
primarily designed to attract further middle-class support.

The Confederation declares that the increase of production and means
of production implies, not only the increase of the productive types,
but at the same time the increase of the middle classes and an ever-
growing diffusion of wealth and property; which also means that it
will afford to the proletarian elites the possibility of acquiring and
directly managing the instruments and materials of production and of
rendering themselves indispensable both socially and technically.^

Organised now on military lines, the Fascists went into action
afresh, captured Milan in August, 1922 and prepared for the march
on Rome. One significant Fascist proposal made at this time was to
minimise the functions of the State.

. . . We have had enough of the State railwayman, the State postman,
and the State insurance official. We have had enough of the State
administration at the expense of the Italian tax-payer, which has done
nothing but aggravate the exhausted financial condition of the
country. . . .-

Under battle-cries such as this, inspiring if slightly obscure, the
Fascists went forward to their bloodless revolution of October 28th,
which resulted in Mussolini becoming Prime Minister, at the King's
invitation, on the 30th. He secured full powers from the House of
Representatives by a vote of 275 to 90, announced a programme of
'Order and Economy', and gained a firm majority in the general
election of 1924. Among his first achievements in office was the re-
duction of the public pay-roll.

. . . Mussolini realised that Italy was suffering, in common with most
Southern countries, from a plethora of officials and State employees.
He began by amalgamating overlapping ministries and suppressing
superfluous offices. A ruthless cutting of staffs in the various ministries

' Three Master Builders and Another. P. H. Box. London, 1925. Manifesto quoted on
p. 158.

- Ihid. quotation on p. 169.

266 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

was inaugurated, designed to discover the exact point at which the
services could be maintained in a state of efficiency. In the six months
ending 30th April, 1923, 17,232 men were dismissed from the railways,
which since the war had become under the State management hope-
lessly over-staffed and inevitably insolvent. Notice was given that by
the end of 1923 the staff must be reduced by another 300,000. The
stupendous disorder of the State railways can be gauged by the fact
that after these amputations, they increased in efficiency.^

This policy of 'Order and Economy' also allowed Mussolini to
abolish death duties, reduce direct taxation and repeal much of the
socialist legislation passed by the liberals. The middle classes thus
won over, Mussolini next turned to console the workers and even-
tually (under the pressure of war) went far towards re-introducing
the economic controls he had just abolished.- However inconsistent
its policy, Fascist government could count at one time upon a great
measure of popular support. Nor was there any display of Italian
grief when 'the whole Parliamentary structure of government in
Italy crumbled like a stucco facade'.^ Mussolini had something better
than parliamentary support in a Catholic country where the Pope
(Pius XI) regarded him — after the concordat of 1929 — as 'the in-
comparable Minister".^ Nor was Mussolini at fault when he said
that 'Never have peoples been yearning for authority, leadership,
and order as they are now\^

The Dictatorships of to-day were thrown up by the swirl of events,
but they have developed an authoritarian philosophy to buttress their
thrones. Bolshevist, Fascist and Nazi agree in repudiating nineteenth-
century Liberalism as a creed outworn. . . .

"Liberalism only flourished for half a century' echoes Mussolini.
'It was born in 1830 in reaction against the Holy Alliance. It is the
logical, and indeed historical, forerunner of anarchy. . . .'^

The story of democracy and dictatorship in modern Germany is
not strikingly different. A strong liberal movement in the late nine-
teenth century had turned towards socialism and gained a measure
of socialist legislation in Bismarck's time. Defeat in the First World
War had combined with the example of Russia to bring about the
revolution of I9I8. In this revolution the proletariat gained power.

A Council of People's Commissars, responsible to the Workers' and
Soldiers' Councils, was appointed, consisting of three majority Social

' Ihid. p. 174.

■ Dictatorship. A. Cobban. London, 1939. p. 129.

' Cobban, op. cit. p. 127.

' The Official Life of Benito Miis.solini. Gcorgio Pini. Trans, by Luigi Villari. London
1939.

' Ihid. p. 244.

" Dictatorship in Theory and Practice. G. P. Gooch. London, 1935. (Conway Mem-
orial Lecture).

THE THEORY OF DICTATORSHIP 267

Democrats, and three Independents. The forms which had thus to be
adopted revealed how completely the pressure and demand of the
masses in the moment of revolution was towards the Soviet Re-
public. . . .^

The same events appeared differently to another, closer, observer.

. . . The great middle stratum of the nation had fulfilled its duty and
paid its toll of blood. One extreme of the population, which was con-
stituted of the best elements, had given a typical example of its heroism
and had sacrificed itself almost to a man. The other extreme, which was
constituted of the worst elements of the population, had preserved
itself almost intact, through taking advantage of absurd laws and also
because the authorities failed to enforce certain articles of the military
code.

This carefully preserved scum of our nation then made the Revo-
lution. And the reason why it could do so was that the extreme section
composed of the best elements was no longer there to oppose it. It no
longer existed. . . .'-

It is the fashion among communists to bewail the fact that the
German workers missed their chance in 1918-23, failing to secure
their position as they might have done by dispossessing the wealthy,
taking over the key industries and arming themselves against middle-
class revolt. That they failed to make the most of their opportunity
is clear. It is at least equally clear that they furthered their own ends
to a very considerable extent. The Weimar Republic was a Social
Welfare State. Rents had been frozen during the war and compre-
hensive schemes of social insurance had been introduced even earlier.
In November, 1918, fresh legislation secured the right to form trades
unions and the right to strike. Similar reforms introdu-^ed the eight-
hour day, provided for collective labour agreements and allowed
workers a share in the control of industry. Fixed wage scales were
agreed by arbitration and Conciliation Boards formed to settle labour
disputes — Boards empowered to give legally binding decisions as from
1923. Factory Councils existed from 1920 and in 1923 a 'Degree
against the abuse of economic power' placed the Cartels under what
was virtually state control. There was even a National Economic
Council with 326 members and labour interests amply represented.
Means Tests were abolished in 1927, by which date most trade union
objectives had been more or less achieved.^

The working class gained something, therefore, under the Weimar
Republic. The middle class, by contrast, lost everything. The inflation
of 1923 destroyed their savings and left them resentful, insecure and

' Fascism and Social Revolution. R. Palme Dutt. London, 1934. pp. 110-111.
- Mein Kampf. Adolf Hitler. Trans, by James Murphy. London, 1939. p. 428.
' See The Weimar Republic. G. Scheele. London, 1946.

268 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

almost ready to revolt. Hayek has very properly pointed out that the
type of socialism which gives security to skilled workmen, fixing
wages and preventing unemployment, actually diminishes the security
of everyone else.^ The impoverished middle class had been left out in
the cold. The National Socialists or Nazis in Germany were largely
drawn from this middle class, a 'white collared proletariat' of
lawyers, teachers and engineers who retained pretentions to power
but whose actual income was far less than that of an engine driver
or other skilled artisan. They were not opposed to Socialism as such
but they 'expected a place in that society very different from that
which society ruled by labour seemed to offer'. To an opposition
comprising an aristocracy and army were added middle class elements
and even such of the lower classes as were outside the privileged
bodies, the trades unions of skilled workers. Adolf Hitler arose as
leader of this opposition and made much of the fact that the Socialist
leaders were, some of them, pacifists, Jews or both. In a speech de-
livered in September, 1923, he asked:

How are States founded ? Through the personality of brilliant leaders
and through a people which deserves to have the crown of laurel
bound about its brows. Compare with them the 'heroes' of this Re-
public! Shirkers, Deserters, and Pacifists: these are its founders and
their heroic acts consisted in leaving in the lurch the soldiers at the
front . . . while at home against old men and half-starved children they
carried through a revolutionary coup d'etat. They have quite simply
got together their November-State by theft! In the face of the armies
returning wearied from the front these thieves have still posed as the
saviours of the Fatherland! They declared the Pacifist-Democratic
Republic. . . .'-

Hitler attacked democracy as such, considering that it led directly
to Bolshevism.

... At all times it has been the principles of Democracy which have
brought peoples to ruin. And if Germany has fallen in the last fourteen
years that was only because the representation of the principles of
Democracy was carried to such lengths that its fathers and representa-
tives in Germany did as a matter of fact stand even below the average
of those numbers whose supremacy they preach. They themselves have
been so mediocre, so small, such dwarfs that they possess no right what-
ever to raise themselves above the masses. Never has any system or any
Government left its place in a more melancholy, more miserable,
more mediocre fashion than did the representatives of the present
system.'

' The Road to Serfdom. F. A. Hayek. London. 1944. Chap. VIII.
= The Speeches of Adolf Hitler. Ed. by N. H. Baynes. 2 Vols. Oxford, 1942. Vol. I.
p. 81.

' Hitler, op. cit. p. 256.

TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTATORSHIP 269

Hitler voiced a less personal criticism of democracy in deploring
the fate of a country in which the government represents a particular
class.

. . . for then the regime will be dependent upon the wishes of individual
economic groups and will thus become the servant of one-sided
economic interests, and therefore be incapable of rising above the
natural economic hopes of individuals in order to protect the justifiable
interests of the community. But a Government cannot serve the
interests of employers on the one hand or of workmen on the other, it
cannot serve city or country, trade or industry, but exclusively the
whole people. . . .'

There was sufficient substance in arguments such as these to gain
for Hitler a measure of genuine support from those honestly con-
vinced that he was right. This support was not considerable, it is
true, until after the economic crisis of 1929. By April, 1932, never-
theless, the National Socialists polled nearly thirteen and a half
million votes; votes for a party leader whose avowed aim was to make
himself dictator. It is incidentally manifest that, had Hitler died at
that point, the dictatorship would have gone to someone else. Brun-
ing had been ruling dictatorially, for that matter, from 1929 and many
assumed that this conservative reaction would continue. M think it is
a safe prophecy' wrote H. J. Laski, 'that the Hitlerite movement has
passed its apogee'. This prophecy was uttered on November 19th,
1932." Hitler came to power on January 30th, 1933.

The notoriety of these two examples, that of Italy and that of
Germany should not persuade us to base any conclusion upon those
examples alone. It would not be true to say that all social-democratic
governments end in dictatorship. Nor would it be true to say that
dictatorships arise in no other way. As against that, it must be con-
ceded that the tendency exists and that many modern dictatorships
did in fact arise on the ruins of some experiment in democracy.
Dr. Alfred Cobban recognises this in his study of dictatorship and
goes so far as to say that 'The historic task of many parliamentary
systems appears to have been to prepare the way for the sovereignty
of a dictator'. He continues:

Dictatorship in modern times has arisen so often out of so-called
democratic institutions that it seems almost as though it could not
appear where there had been no previous attempt at self-government;
but whereas the decline of traditional authorities is an invariable pre-
requisite of dictatorship, the establishment of what might be called a
democratic government is not always to be found among the events
preceding its rise. In the Greek cities, for example, we often seem to

' Hitler, op. cit. p. 453.

■ Daily Herald, quoted in R. Palme Dutt. op. cit. p. 124.

270 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

pass directly from the overthrow of an aristocracy to the rule of a
tyrant. In the modern world, however, a positive attempt at govern-
ment by the people, however false or fleeting, has nearly always inter-
vened between the fall of an hereditary monarchy, and the establish-
ment of dictatorial rule.^

But if the examples briefly cited afford no foundation upon which
to base an invariable rule governing the origin of dictatorship, they
are equally insufficient to prove that dictatorship is manifestly harm-
ful. Any detailed study of dictatorship in modern history must
certainly reveal examples to the contrary.- Count Carlo Sforza had to
admit that Porfirio Diaz governed Mexico well.^ Most historians will
admit that there was much to say for Eleutherios Venizelos and more to
say for Mustafa Kemal. Pilsudski, Primo de Rivera, Dollfuss and
Salazar have their admirers still. And even in the instances cited of
frankly tyrannical rule it is not always clear that the possible alterna-
tives would not have been worse. In a comparison of tangible achieve-
ment many dictatorships might be found to have a better record than
many democracies. The main objection to dictatorship is not that it is
inefficient or harsh but simply that it cannot last more than a lifetime
and that its termination may involve civil war. The final criticism of
dictatorship comes not from its enemies but from its defenders. For
the more fervent they are in a dictator's praise, the more hopeless
(they imply) will the situation be when he dies.

We must not forget that Mussolini is the man who gave himself
entirely to the great cause, animating it by his intelligence and his
robust military temperament. Fascism does not make an idol of him,
but it admires him for his political correctness, for the clearness of his
outlook, and for his wisdom in action. Above all, it knows that, with-
out Mussolini, it would be like an orphan or a crippled child, and that,
without his vivifying inspiration, it would eventually fall under the
blows of a victorious enemy.*

The sternest critic of fascism can add little to that.

' Dictatorship, Its History and Theory. Alfred Cobban. London, 1939. p. 260.

- See Dictatorship in the Modern World. Ed. by G. S. Ford. Minnesota, 1935-37.
See also The Story of dictatorship from the earliest times till to-dav. E. E. Kellett. London,
1937.

' European Dictatorships. Count Carlo Sforza. London, 1932.

' The Fascist Movement in Italian Life. P. Gorgolini. Trans, by M. D. Petre. London,
1923. p. 213.

CHAPTER XXII

The Theory of Dictatorship

THE part played by authors in shaping the pohtical destinies of
mankind has often been exaggerated. Few dictators have seized
power with a weapon in one hand and a textbook in the other. What
they have done, however, more especially in recent times, has been to
choose from the available literature such books as seemed useful in
exhorting the faithful or persuading the public. By the books thus
chosen they have been influenced in details, at least, of policy. We
shall not overestimate that influence if we remember that the dictator
chose the book from among a dozen others, all containing less
palatable advice; it was not the author who chose the dictator from
among a group of other candidates. Within these limits it is clear
that authors have had their influence, both upon dictators and upon
the peoples they ruled. Not all dictators have been illiterate.
Mussolini, while remarking that 'The reality of experience is far
more eloquent than all the theories and doctrines of all languages
and all bookshelves',^ was careful to emphasise that he had his
cultural side. His official biographer tells us of him that,

As a young man he devoted long hours to the study and the trans-
lation of German authors, such as Nietzche, Schopenhauer, Stirner,
Weininger, Marx, Schiller, Klopstock, von Platen, Heine, Goethe and
Hegel. His favourite Italian authors are Dante, Carducci, Oriani,
Foscolo, Pareto; his French favourites are Sorel, Blanqui, Balzac,
Le Bon. He reads and re-reads Plato, and likes to discuss Phaedon's
arguments on the immortality of the soul. Occasionally he reviews
some new publication. He listens to the operas of Wagner, Verdi, and
Puccini, but 'T adore Beethoven', he says. . . .-

Had he in fact read as widely as this? He probably had in so far as a
journalist ever reads anything. He had certainly read Sorel. What of
the other dictators? Bolivar had read a great deal and so no doubt
had Venizelos. Adolf Hitler had read within the narrow range of his
own ideas, being willing and even eager to compare the theories of
Chamberlain with those of Rosenberg. He had read Moller van den
Briick's book, The Third Realm (1922) in which liberalismis denounced

^ The official life of Benito Mussolini. Georgia P'lni. Trans, by Luigi Villari. London,
1939. p. 229.
'Ibid. p. 241.

271

272 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

as the gospel of anarchy and Mberals as persons who consider their
own interests, never those of society or the State. He had read with
interest the works of Schopenhauer and Carlyle's biography of
Frederick the Great. ^ He had read Machiavelli's Prince.'^ He is more
remarkable, however, in having written and published his bible and
manifesto long before he came to power. As it contained the detailed
programme of all that he intended to do, it might have been of con-
siderable value to the Ministers of the democratic states. He evidently
relied, however, upon their never having read that (or, in some cases,
anything else) — or upon their not believing it. Events were to justify
his confidence but it is an aspect of his career which is surely unique.
Apart from that, Mein Ka m pf gWcs us an unusually clear and frank
picture of his mental development as also of his mental limitations.
He had gained inspiration from a number of sources. Studying what
he had read we know also by what authors he was indirectly
influenced. We can trace his ideas to their origin. The same is true of
Mussolini. And, having so traced the ancestry of modern dictatorship
we must agree that it is worthy of study.

'Sorel is the key to all contemporary thought' wrote Wyndham
Lewis,^ and Benedetto Croce regarded Sorel as the only original
socialist thinker other than Karl Marx. In a sense, this is true, but to
begin with Sorel would be to ignore Nietzche, which hardly seems
possible. For whereas socialism will normally lead to dictatorship,
whether as a result of its success or failure, the gospel of the Super-
man reaches the same goal by a different route; and would reach it
just the same even if no such doctrine as socialism had ever been
evolved. The Superman idea was to some extent endemic in Germany
and can be traced to Fichte (1762-1814) and even to Kant (1724-1804).
Kant taught, among other things, that the united will of the people
could be embodied in and represented by a single individual. The
same idea appears in the later works of Fichte (1762-1814). This
philosopher held that the progress of mankind is not attributable to
peoples as a whole but to the creative genius of heroes and scholars — ■
'Heroes who left their age far behind them, giants among surrounding
men in material and spiritual power'.* Intellectual giants such as these
should be the rulers as well as teachers of mankind. They should
appoint the wisest and greatest among them to be the supreme
dictator. Fichte was rather vague about the process of election and
succession but concluded hopefully that it could be left to the hand
of God. 'Sooner or later a man will arise who is both the ruler of his

' See Hitler's Table Talk. Trans, by H. R. Trevor-Roper. London, 1953. pp. XXIX,
89, 358. See also Mein Kampf. Adolf Hitler. 2 vols. London, 1939. p. 256, 227.

^ Hitler Speaks. Herman Rauschning. London, 1939. p. 267.

= The Art of being Ruled. Wyndham Lewis. London, 1926. p. 128.

* From Luther to Hitler, the History of Fascist-Nazi political philosophy. W. M.
McGovern. London, 1946. p. 255.

THE THEORY OF DICTATORSHIP 273

country and the most just of his countrymen. Such a man will
certainly find a way to establish the succession of the best\^ It is an
optimistic conclusion, and worldly experience would suggest that
a meeting of intellectuals, summoned to elect the wisest of them all,
might prove more acrimonious than Fichte seems to anticipate.

Another exponent of the German love of authority was Hegel
(1770-1831) for whom the State was the Divine Idea as it exists on
earth. He regarded Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon as so many
unconscious agents of the World Spirit, meeting their death only
when their earthly mission had been fulfilled. To the national State
of the nineteenth century Hegel assigned a permanence as representing
the final and perfect development of political institutions, created by
the World Spirit working through man. He assigned to the State,
moreover, an importance which he denied to the individual. The
State to him was an end in itself and had 'the highest right over the
individual, whose highest duty in turn is to be a member of the state'. ^
States have unequal value, however, and at a given period the domi-
nant idea of that period 'is embodied in a dominant people'.^ The
mere success of that people is proof of their being more in accord
with the World Spirit than the others. Hegel considered that mon-
archy is essential to good government and achieves its perfection in
its constitutional form. All this was acceptable doctrine in the Prussia
of his day and well calculated to transform the professor of 1818 into
the University Rector of 1830. To one not fascinated (as the Germans
were) by the obscurity of his diction, Hegelian dialectic might seem
no more important than that. Hegel, however, whether profound or
not, was certainly important, if only through the historical role of
his disciples, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Ferdinand Lasalle. It
is perhaps significant that in Hegel the arguments for dictatorship and
the arguments for socialism can be traced to a common source.

In the development, however, of the doctrine of Superman, it is
easy to exaggerate the part played by German professors of philo-
sophy. It is true that potential dictators, like Mussolini, could turn
for inspiration to Hegel. But they would gain more encouragement by
going direct to the source of Hegel's inspiration: the Prussia of
Bismarck, as heir to the Prussia of Frederick the Great. In so far as
authors were to provide inspiration, the two that mattered most were
probably Thomas Carlyle and Friedrich Nietzche, not so much
because of their profundity as because of their literary gifts. The
arguments for dictatorship are largely emotional and aesthetic and
need poetic rather than purely intellectual expression. Carlyle was too
much of a literary man to spend much time on Kant or Fichte,

^ Ibid. p. 255.
- Ibid. p. 300.
^ Ibid. p. 318.

274 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

fervently as he professed to admire them both. Nor was he himself a
systematic thinker on political problems. His views are implicit,
rather, in what he had to write about the French Revolution, Heroes
and Hero-Worship and Frederick the Great. History was to him 'the
biography of great men' — of men like Luther, Oliver Cromwell and
Goethe. He had nothing to say in praise of hereditary monarchy,
aristocracy or plutocracy, but neither can we find that he liked democ-
racy any better. He could see in it nothing but 'a swift transition
towards something other and farther' for the people were, after all,
'mostly fools'. Rule must be vested in the wise few, not in the in-
numerable and foolish. Over the few he would set a single ruler — a
king. He wanted to see '. . . Hero-kings, and a whole world not
unheroic. . . .'^ How is the king to be appointed? Carlyle does not say,
but his expressed admiration for Cromwell and Napoleon is at least
suggestive. He infers that the hero will arise to meet the need of the
day.

From a bare recital of this lame conclusion it might well be
thought that Carlyle's disciples would be few. But his strength, his
appeal as an author, does not lie in argument but in a picturesque
violence. He does not so much preach violence as exemplify it
attractively. He does not so much defend dictatorship as describe it
in terms of hero-worship. How does he define heroism?

The Hero is he who lives in the inward sphere of things, in the True,
Divine, and Eternal, which exists always, unseen to most, under the
Temporary, Trivial: his being is in that; he declares that abroad, by
act or speech as it may be, in declaring himself abroad. His life, as we
said before, is a piece of the everlasting heart of Nature herself: all
men's life is, — but the weak many know not the fact, and are untrue
to it, in most times; the strong few are strong, heroic, perennial,
because it cannot be hidden from them.-

Heroes, as thus defined, are born from time to time, and it is upon
these that all depends.

To me. . . . 'Hero-worship' becomes a fact inexpressibly precious;
the most solacing fact one sees in the world at present. There is an
everlasting hope in it for the management of the world. Had all
traditions, arrangements, creeds, societies that men ever instituted,
sunk away, this would remain. The certainty of Heroes being sent us;
our faculty, our necessity, to reverence Heroes when sent; it shines like
a pole-star through smoke-clouds, dust-clouds, and all manner of
down-rushing and conflagration.^

Apart from prophets, Carlyle finds that Cromwell fits best into his

' McGovern. op. cil. p. 200.

- Carlyle's T/ieory of the Hero. B. H. Lehman. North Carolina, 1928. p. 41. See also
Carlyle and Hitler. H. J. C. Grierson. Cambridge, 1933.

^Sartor Resartus: Lectures on Heroes, etc. T. Carlyle. London, 1892. pp. 336-337.

THE THEORY OF DICTATORSHIP 275

idea of the heroic role. He cannot summon up quite the same feehng
about Napoleon.

... I find in him no such sincerity as in Cromwell; only a far inferior
sort. No silent walking, through long years, with the Awful Un-
namable of this Universe ; 'walking with God', as he called it ; and faith
and strength in that alone: latent thought and valour, content to lie
latent, then burst-out as in blaze of Heaven's lightning! Napoleon
lived in an age when God was no longer believed ... he had to begin
not out of the Puritan Bible, but out of poor Sceptical Encyclo-
pedies. . . .^

This last disadvantage, almost excluding Napoleon from the ranks
of the heroes, was shared by most of those who came later still in
history. Carlyle, contemporary as he was of (say) Abraham Lincoln,
could find no heroes in his own day, save Goethe. He makes it clear,
nevertheless, in Past cifui Present that further heroes are to be expected.
More than that, they are to be recognised. Of the Hero, he writes

... His place is with the stars of heaven. ... To this man death is not a
bugbear; to this man life is aFready as earnest and awful, and beautiful
and terrible, as death.

Not a May-game is this man's life; but a battle and a march, a
warfare with principalities and powers ... a stern pilgrimage through
burning sandy solitudes, through regions of thick-ribbed ice. He
walks among men; loves men, with inexpressible soft pity — as they
cannot love him: but his soul dwells in solitude, in the uttermost parts
of Creation. In green oases by the palm-tree wells, he rests a space; but
anon he has to journey forward, escorted by the Terrors and the
Splendours, the Archdemons and Archangels. All Heaven, all Pande-
monium are his escort. The stars keen-glancing, from the Immensities,
send tidings to him; the graves, silent with their dead, from the
Eternities. Deep calls for him unto Deep.

Thou, O World, how wilt thou secure thyself against this man?
... He is thy born king, thy conqueror and supreme lawgiver: not all
the guineas and cannons . . . under the sky can save thee from him. . . .
Oh, if in this man, whose eyes can flash Heaven's lightning . . . there
dwelt not, as the essence of his very being, a God's justice, human
Nobleness, Veracity and Mercy — 1 should tremble for the world.
But his strength, let us rejoice to understand, is even'this: The quantity
of Justice, of Valour and Pity that is in him. To hypocrites and tailored
quacks in high places, his eyes are lightning; but they melt in dewy
pity softer than a mother's to the downpressed, maltreated; in his
heart, in his great thought, is a sanctuary for all the wretched. This
world's improvement is forever sure.-

Improvement there will be but Carlyle makes it clear that nothing
of this sort is to be expected of a Parliament.

' Carlyle. op. cit. p. 363.
' /hid. p. 297.

276 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

A Government such as ours, consisting of from seven to eight
hundred Parliamentary Talkers, with their escort of Able Editors and
Public Opinion; and for head, certain Lords and Servants of the
Treasury, and Chief Secretaries and others who find themselves at
once Chiefs and No-Chiefs, and often commanded rather than
commanding, — is doubtless a most complicate entity, and none of the
alertest for getting on with business!^

Indeed, he turns with relief from Parliament and gazes with some
respect at the Horse Guards. By comparison, he feels that the War
Office has achieved something, created an army out of 'runaway
apprentices, starved weavers, thievish valets'. The soldier offers a
kind of reality — 'He is a fact and not a shadow'. Then he continues:

. . . Most potent, effectual for all work whatsoever, is wise planning,
firm combining and commanding among men. Let no man despair of
Government who looks on these two sentries at the Horse-Guards,
and our United-Service Clubs! 1 could conceive an Emigration
Service, a Teaching Service, considerable varieties of United and
Separate Services, of the due thousands strong, all effective as this
Fighting Service is; all doing their work, like it; — which work, much
more than fighting, is henceforth the necessity of these New Ages we
are got into! Much lies among us, convulsively, nigh desperately
struggling to be bornr

Carlyle calls for a military efficiency in combating Falsehood,
Nescience, Delusion, Disorder and the Devil. He asks that something
of the British competence displayed in war should be mobilised
against bad drainage and dirt and soot. Forty soldiers, he points out,
will disperse the largest Spitalfields mob. Why should governmental
energy be confined to that? He wants government to 'order all dingy
Manufacturing Towns to cease from their soot and darkness' — a plea
still being made by others a century later and with as little result. He
demands an education service and a Captain-General of Teachers.
He wants to see vigorous action and doubts whether he will ever see
it in Parliament.

it is at that point that he tends to lose the sympathy of those who
are otherwise to be counted among his British admirers. Dr. G. M.
Trevelyan, profoundly shocked, finds that Carlyle's genius declined
after 1851.

Fortunately Carlyle's later and worse doctrines in dispraise of
Parliamentary government had singularly little influence on the Eng-
lish, even during those last years when his countrymen so much revered
him. There was indeed no period in our history when Parliamentary
government was so universally acceptable, and despotism more
abhorred.^

' Carlyle. op. cit. p. 297.

' Ibid. p. 275. Past and Present.

' Carlyle, an Anthology. G. M. Trevelyan. London, 1953. Introduction, p. 5.

THE THEORY OF DICTATORSHIP 277

This may well be true, even of the year 1843 when he was writing
Past and Present and long before his genius had, in Trevelyan's view,
deteriorated. But it is that very fact, supposing it admitted, that makes
his criticism more striking. It is not the unreformed Parliament he is
attacking, nor the corruption of the early twentieth century. The
Parliament he dismisses as hopelessly inactive and useless can clearly
be taken as Parliament at its best. It has never, surely, had a com-
parable prestige before or since. His objection to Parliament is not
that it is particularly corrupt or unrepresentative. Nor would he think
the better of it were Parliament to be made more democratic. His
complaint is merely that it does not work.

Akin to Carlyle in some ways but born at a later date was Friedrich
Nietzche (1844-1900). If the other apostles of violence and heroism
were, without exception, academic and sedentary, Nietzche was
practically an invalid. He was a believer, nevertheless, in the German
equivalent of Carlyle's hero; the Superman. In his own words,
'humanity must always act so as to bring men of genius into the
world — this is its task; it has no other'. ^ He is less precise about the
method to be chosen but emphatic that it can be done. One essential
condition for the cultivation of genius is, he maintains, the institution
of slavery. 'The misery of the men who struggle painfully through life
must be increased to allow a small number of Olympic geniuses to
produce great works of art'.- Another essential condition is the
creation of an elite, a superior class from which the Superman can
spring to a yet greater height. There is therefore, he concluded, a
morality of masters and a morality of slaves. The masters despise
weakness, cowardice, flattery and humility but respect strength,
audacity, deceit and even cruelty. The principles of conduct main-
tained among themselves are not applied to inferiors. The slaves have
a different morality. They detest all that is violent, hard, terrible and
destructive. They applaud the slave virtues of pity, benevolence,
industry, humility and patience. Typical products of the slave
mentality are the Jews who have equated misery with virtue, happiness
with vice. Christianity, adopting the Jewish scale of values, has
exalted the weak, consoling them with tales of a future happiness.
These Christian ideas, spreading widely, have represented the triumph
of the slave morality. This triumph of a religion of suffering has
brought Europe to a state of decadence. Mediocrities rule who dare
not even keep order. The chief symptom of decadence is democracy. The
fashion is to demand a Society of equals, without masters or slaves,
rich or poor, rulers or subjects. Nothing is to be left but the herd.
Only the Superman can finally save mankind from this levelling

' Sclwpenliauer as Educator, sec. 6. Quoted in Tlie Gospel of Superman. H. Lichlen-
berger. Trans, by J. M. Kennedy. London, 1926.
- Lichtenberger. op. cit. p. 61.

278 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

tendency but it is the task of men as they are to recreate the conditions
which will favour the Superman's rise.

The gospel of Superman did not appeal to all but it did appeal to
George Bernard Shaw, the non-democratic socialist. He gave expres-
sion to his belief in the play Man and Superman, first published in
1903.^ In a sort of postscript to that he writes: —

The need for the Superman is, in its most imperative aspect, a
political one. We have been driven to Proletarian Democracy by the
failure of all the alternative systems; for these depended on the
existence of Supermen acting as despots or oligarchs . . . [who were not
forthcoming]. . . .

Now we have yet to see the man who, having any practical experience
of Proletarian Democracy, has any belief in its capacity for solving
great political problems, or even for doing ordinary parochial work
intelligently and economically. Only under despotisms and oligarchies
has the Radical faith in 'universal suffrage" as a political panacea
arisen. It withers the moment it is exposed to practical trial. . . .'-

His preference may have been for a democracy of Supermen but
the fact remains that he was attracted by the idea of dictatorship,
going so far as to express a guarded approval of Mussolini.^ Views of
this kind were virtually echoed by two of his outstanding contem-
poraries, Hilaire Belloc and H. G. Wells. Nor, as late as 1928, had
Shaw greatly changed his views. He knew that dictatorship has its
major weakness in the succession difficulty but he also knew that
democratic politicians had failed and failed repeatedly to solve even
the simplest problems of the age. Universal suffrage he regarded as a
delusion and a disappointment.

At all events the bunch of carrots which for a whole century kept the
electoral donkey pursuing it has now been overtaken and eaten without
giving the poor beast the least refreshment. This is why Parliament has
been pushed aside by Fascist Leaders in Germany and Italy, and
reduced in Russia to a congress which meets at long intervals to ratify
reforms, but has no effective hand in initiating them.^

He also saw that dictators could and did succeed where parliaments
had failed.

. . . All your wouldbe dictator has to do is to deal with fools according
to their folly by giving them plenty of the stuff they like to swallow
whilst he sets to work energetically on reforms that appeal to every-
one's commonsense and comfort, and stops the more obvious abuses

' Man and Superman. A Comedy and a P/iilosop/iv. By Bernard Shaw. London, 1931.
See pp. 184-5.

= Shaw. op. cit. p. 184.

^ See Dutt, R. P. George Bernard Shaw. London, 1951.

^ The Intelligent Woman s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism.
Bernard Shaw. London, 1949. p. 476.

THE THEORY OF DICTATORSHIP 279

of the existing order. His first step will be to abolish all the little
councils of elderly local tradesmen. ... He will substitute energetic
and capable young prefects with absolute powers from himself to clean
up the provinces; and by this he will not only effect a speedy improve-
ment in local government, but will do it in a way which exactly fits in
with the popular desire to get rid of a lot of vulgar old tradesmen and
employ some superior person to set things right. ^

He emphasises that these and more ruthless measures will be
popular.

. . . When the Leader speaks of the Liberals and their bag of rights and
liberty with masterful contempt, and calls for discipline, order, silence,
patriotism and devotion to the State of which he is the embodiment,
the people respond enthusiastically and leave the Liberals to rot in
the penal islands, concentration camps, and prisons into which they
have been flung. . . .-

Fascism also gets rid of the absurdity of a senselessly obstructive
Party Opposition, resulting in parliaments where half the members are
trying to govern and the other half trying to prevent them. . . .^

In the final analysis, Bernard Shaw's main objection to Fascism is
that it is not Socialism — although (as he admits) closely resembling
it. He considers that Fascism is doomed simply because it is capital-
istic. He considers that liberal democracy is also doomed and for the
same reason. In the meanwhile, of the two evils, he prefers Fascism
'in so far as it produces a United Front with a public outlook'.

If Fascist or Nazi ideas could be as attractive as this to a great
Irishman, who finally condemned them as childish, they naturally
appealed more forcibly to people with wilder emotions and fewer
brains. Outstanding among these, and wielding considerable influence
in Germany, was Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855-1926), an
Englishman who went abroad for his health, first to Austria and then
in 1900, to Germany. His principal work was entitled ^The Foundations
of the Nineteenth Century', and was published in 1899. Chamberlain
took some of his nonsensical doctrines about racial purity and in-
equality from Gobineau (1816-1882) but is more interesting, or more
to our present purpose, when he discusses democracy.

To tell the truth, all nations of the earth are sick and tired of parlia-
ments; tired of the sacred general franchise; tired of the ever-running
flow of oratory, which threatens to drown the whole of the civilised
world, as in a new Deluge.

He asks what part the people should play in government and
answers his question thus: —

' Shaw. op. cit. p. 479.
- Ihid. p. 480.
=■ /6/W. p. 481.

280 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

The people will be the unconscious root, supplying nutriment, the
reserve of forces, and will then prove themselves as efficient as now in
the German army. As soon as the people are brought to silence, their
voice is most distinctly heard. Their speech is not dialectic, but some-
thing which far surpasses it. A monarch may be represented, a class, a
profession — a people cannot be represented. The people are nature,
and a Mr. Muller or Mr. Meyer is as little able to represent them as he
is to represent a mountain or a wood. This pretended representation of
the people does nothing but destroy the real vigour of the people and
cause a chaos. It causes restlessness and, therefore, anxiety. It consumes
every root fibre which would have served to sustain life. It stultifies by
its debate and nullifies all great plans by its disputes. In addition to this,
like a monstrous dragon, it swallows mountains of strength and
oceans of time, all of which are lost for ever for the life of the nation.
The people naturally recognise and foster great characters; parliament
invariably refuses to tolerate any talent that arises above medi-
ocrity. . . .^

Central to the groups of thinkers who had come to regard liberal
democracy with contempt was Richard Wagner (1813-1883). If
Strauss may be said to have composed the background music for the
Holy Alliance, Wagner certainly provided the musical accompani-
ment for the drama of dictatorship. It was he too who was responsible
for those cavorting Nibelungs and Valkyries which played what seems
to be (at first sight) an unnecessarily prominent role in the politics of
the Third Reich. He was central to this school of thought in that he
was for years a close friend of Nietzche, who wrote in his defence; a
composer greatly admired by Bernard Shaw;- and the father-in-law
of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Wagner was sufficiently active in
the Dresden insurrection of 1848-49 to suffer years of exile in
Switzerland. He was sufficiently prolific to leave behind him ten
volumes of published prose. It was, nevertheless, his music which
had the greater effect in furthering the emotional cause, in stilling
the voice of reason, in heightening the operatic effect of violence as
its own excuse. Adolf Hitler could find in Tarmhduser or Lohengrin
any inspiration he might fail to draw from mountain scenery or tea-
time buns. The mad King Ludwig of Bavaria had pensioned Wagner
in the first place and a later Bavarian hero was to be carried away
more fatally by the dramatic force of drums and wind. Adolf Hitler
first became obsessed with Wagner in his Vienna days when he saw
Tristan thirty or forty times; ever afterwards maintaining that this is
Wagner's masterpiece. His first contact with the Wagner family was

' The Ravings of a Renegade; being the War Essays of Houston Stewart Chamberlain.
Trans, by G. H. Clarke. London. 1915.

-See Major Critical Essays. The Perfect Wagnerite. G. B. Shaw. London, 1948.
pp. 187, 244, 245. Wagner, originally a friend of Bakunin, was much influenced by
Schopenhauer's treatise on 'The world as Will and Representation' in which instinct
and reason are contrasted. Wagner also hated the Jews.

THE THEORY OF DICTATORSHIP 281

indirectly through the son-in-law — ('Houston Stewart Chamberlain
wrote to me so nicely when I was in prison') — but he evidently met
Wagner's widow, Cosima, for the first time in 1925. He had just
emerged from jail and went to stay with Frau Bechstein at Bayreuth
for the Festival. The Wagners, Cosima and Siegfried, lived a few
yards away, and a friendship began, with drives into the Franconian
mountains and evenings at the opera with Cleving at his best in
Parsifal. 'I was also present' said Hitler in 1942, 'at the Ring and the
Meistersinger. The fact that the Jew Schorr was allowed to sing the
role of Wotan had the effect of a profanation on me. Why couldn't
they have got Rode from Munich?' Despite this shock, the visit was
a success. Hitler remained on Christian-name terms with the Wagners,
remarking afterwards that it was Cosima's merit 'to have created the
link between Bayreuth and National Socialism'. The link was
certainly there. Hitler owned several of Wagner's original scores and
would sigh, on occasion, 'What joy each of Wagner's works has
given me!'^

It is easy to see what is absurd in Wagnerian politics, even when
related to the portentous conclusions of German philosophers, stated
with all the violence of the sedentary, the bookish and the sick. It is
easier still, however, to forget that theories generally false may be
based on some beliefs that are perfectly true. And the truth which
lurks amid the Fascist falsities is that liberal democracy is dreary,
deadening and dull. That is not a theory but a fact; and when
Chamberlain said that people are sick and tired of parliaments, he
was telling the literal truth. The spectacle of drab little men moving
amendments to drab little proposals is seldom inspiring. It lacks the
pageantry which the normal human being needs. The enthusiast can
explain its significance to schoolboys and may even gain their
reluctant assent. But the pageant of a coronation needs no explana-
tion. The critic who grumbles about the cost is answered not by
arguments but by the clatter of the cavalry, the thunder of the psalm,
the glitter of the sword blades and the spine-shivering shrillness of the
trumpets' chord. Words are worse than useless. The thing explains
itself. And that is exactly what the average modern legislature fails to
do. Its proceedings are usually as colourless as its ideas. Round its
prim procedure there hangs the slight but unmistakable smell of
political corruption. Its atmosphere is heavy with failure; failure to
achieve anything, failure to agree and failure even to arouse any
public interest in what has been attempted.

' See Hitler's Table Talk. Trans, and edited by H. R. Trevor-Roper. London, 1953.
pp. 147, 240-242 and 283. Oswald Spengler, whom Hitler consulted before the forrner
died in 1936 saw in Tristan the finale of western music. He also points out the affinity
between Wagner and the painter, Manet 'which Baudelaire with his unerring flair for
the decadent detected at once'. See The Decline of the West. Oswald Spengler. 2 vols.
Trans, by C. F. Atkinson. New York, 1947. Vol. I. p. 292.

282 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Among the nineteenth-twentieth century thinkers who most
clearly perceived this failure was Georges Sorel (1847-1922). Unlike
many political theorists, he had some practical experience; not of
politics but of roads and bridges.^ As a Frenchman and, after his
retirement, a Parisian by choice, he was privileged to contemplate
perhaps the least inspiring of the uninspired republics. His views
veered from socialism to syndicalism, from royalism to anarchy. He
can be quoted in defence of many political creeds. The syndicalists,
whose prophet he once was, bequeathed to Mussolini a single (and
useful) constructive idea; that of providing for the political rep-
resentations of trades and professions rather than of areas or places.
But that is not Sorel's importance in the present context. His Reflec-
tions on Violence, which first appeared in 1906, emphasise the need
for an irrational and romantic heroism. Among the first to apply
psychology to politics, he held that a political movement needs not a
rational creed but a myth. Without a mythology it cannot succeed.
He dismissed the socialism of Sidney Webb as the typical product of
a second-class mind.- He rejected statistical arguments and called for
a myth, defined as 'a body of images capable of evoking sentiment
instinctively'.^ His chosen myth was that of the General Strike, con-
sidered as a political panacea. He rejected the myth of the Barricades,
observing sorrowfully that 'Civil war has become very difficult since
the discovery of the new firearms, and since the cutting of rectilinear
streets in the capital towns'. This was a natural reflection for a
revolutionary Parisian living in the Paris replanned by Haussmann for
Napoleon ill, and his general strike was a poor substitute for some-
thing better. His own chosen myth came to little in France and to less
in the England of 1926. But the idea of the Myth has taken root.

Experience shows that the framing of a future, in some indeter-
minate time, may, when it is done in a certain way, be very effective,
and have very few inconveniences; this happens when the anticipa-
tions of the future take the form of those myths, which enclose with
them all the strongest inchnations of a people, of a party or of a class,
inclinations which recur to the mind with the insistence of instincts in
all the circumstances of life; and which give an aspect of complete
reality to the hopes of immediate action by which, more easily than by
any other method, men can reform their desires, passions, and mental
activity.*

' Bernard Shaw very rightly observes that V/agncr also had practical experience.
'It is possible' he observes 'to learn more of the world by producing a single opera, or
even conducting a single orchestral rehearsai, than by ten years reading in the library
of the British Museum'. Wagner is thus contrasted favourably with Karl Marx. Sec
Shaw. op. (It. p. 244.

' Ri'llections on Violence. Georges Sorel. Trans, by T. E. Hulme. London, 1915. See
also Tlie Mvtii of the Stale. Ernst Cassirer. Yale, 1946.

" ll)id. p. 75.

' IhUL p. 133.

THE THEORY OF DICTATORSHIP 283

Later in the same book Sorel asks what motive can inspire the
worker in a sociaHst state, what motive comparable with that which
inspires a soldier in battle.

Economic progress goes far beyond the individual life, and profits
future generations more than those who create it; but does it give
glory? Is there an economic epic capable of stimulating the en-
thusiasm of the workers?^

If no such epic has been found in modern times, it is certainly not
from any lack of energy in the search. From Mussolini's Pontine
Marshes to Stalin's films about increased production we have seen
the myth triumphant over fact or even probability. Sorel believed not
in laboured reasoning but in mythology and resulting action. For
representative assemblies he had no use at all."^

Government by all the citizens has never been anything but a
fiction ; but this fiction was the last word of democratic science. No one
has ever been able to justify this singular paradox according to which
the vote of a chaotic majority is rhade to appear to be what Rousseau
calls the general will which cannot err. In spite of their distrust of the
Utopians of the eighteenth century, socialist writers often reproduce
Rousseau's idea: they say that the state will no longer exist because,
classes having disappeared, there will no longer be oppression in
society and that then the public administration will truly represent the
whole of the citizens. These affirmations are without a vestige of
proof. . . ?

His dislike of parliamentary government was intensified by the
First World War and he wrote bitterly of the Allies' treatment of
Germany and Italy.

I am only an old man, whose life is at the mercy of the smallest
accident; but may I before descending into the grave, witness the
humiliation of the arrogant bourgeois democracies today so cynically
triumphant!*

It is a matter for doubt whether his wish was granted him. Dying
in 1922, he had not lived long enough to see the humiliation of
Munich. He had, however, witnessed the Washington Naval Treaty
of 1921, the beginning of a process which would lead in the end, if
not to Munich, at least to the fall of Singapore.

Sorel left behind him not only his works but his disciples. Vilfredo
Pareto survived him, it is true, for only a year, but Sorel's thought is
reflected in the works of Marinetti, Palmieri and the other Fascist

' Sorel, op. cit. p. 293.

- See From Luther to Hitler. W. M. McGovern. London, 1946. p. 432.
"^ Georges Sorel, Prophet without Honor. A study in anti-inteliectualism. Richard
Humphrey. Harvard, 1951. p. 70.
' Humphrey, op. cit. p. 21.

284 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

apologists. Nor is it absent in the works of Benedetto Croce, who
points out that the scope of the Myth in pohtics has been widened by
elementary education:

Popular education, which the liberal nineteenth century enthusi-
astically inaugurated, has not fulfilled the hope of making the masses
politically intelligent. They have become more the prey of emotional
propaganda, drawing its strength from passion and imagination. . . .
What the people want is not truth but some myth which flatters their
feelings, and the first and unwelcome truth they need to be taught is to
distrust the demagogues who excite and intoxicate them. . . .'

Above all, we know of Sorel's influence upon Mussolini, who
said in 1932:

Every revolution creates new forms, new myths and new rites and
the would-be revolutionist, while using old traditions, must refashion
them. He must create new festivals, new gestures, new forms which
will themselves become traditional."

By 1932 the myth had indeed been established in the world. It was
not, however, the myth which Sore! had wished to see installed. It
was the myth of the all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful Leader;
the dominant political theme of the twentieth century. We have
seen democracy turn into dictatorship and we have seen some dic-
tatorships collapse under the impact of military defeat. There are
many to-day who expect to see these dictatorships replaced by
democracy. Neither, however, in historical example nor in political
theory can we find much reason to think this probable. After a
dictator we should rather expect to see a King.

My Philosophy. Benedetto Croce. Trans, by E. F. Carritt. London, 1949. p. 90.
Quoted in McGovern. op. cit. p. 549.

CHAPTER XXIII

Dictatorship in Decay

NOT all the arguments for dictatorship are either dishonest,
romantic or false. We have seen what arguments have been
used and those of substance can evidently be reduced to three. They
are worth re-stating now. First of these is the argument which springs
from the fact of genius. Persons with what appears to be divine
inspiration — Gautama, Joan of Arc or Gandhi — are relatively few
in the story of mankind. In retrospect it is often found that they were
uncannily right when everyone else was wrong. We feel, looking back,
that the people among whom they lived would have fared better had
they done exactly what they were told to do. Is it not the sensible
course to do what genius says should be done? Would not the Greeks
have done well to make Socrates their leader? Would not the French
have done better to instal St. Joan in supreme power? Were not the
people of India wise to obey Gandhi as much as they did, and would
they not have been wiser still had they obeyed him even more
implicitly ? To believers in God there can be nothing very unreasonable
in obeying those whom God has inspired. Non-believers, on the other
hand, are usually ready to admit the fact that genius exists. If genius
is known and admitted in music and painting — if John Sebastian
Bach and Michaelangelo had genius — why should we question that
there may be genius too in politics? Christopher Wr^n was apt to
differ from his contemporaries in matters of architecture and engin-
eering, and events have almost invariably proved that he was right and
they were wrong. Are there no statesmen as prescient, and if there are,
should we not entrust the supreme authority to them?

To this argument many would reply that the genius may, by
persuasion, gain acceptance of his ideas, achieving by example and
argument what we do not allow him to achieve by force. To this
Adolf Hitler has the answer:

Is it an indispensable quality in a statesman that he should possess
a gift of persuasion commensurate with the statesman's ability to
conceive great political measures and carry them through into
practice? . . .

What shall the statesman do if he does not succeed in coaxing the
parliamentary multitude to give its consent to his policy?'

' Hitler, op. cit. p. 79.

285

286 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

As an answer this is sufficient. Vision and strength are not neces-
sarily accompanied by the arts of the demagogue. A genius apt for
command cannot always stoop to persuade. More than that, the
serene certainty of the man of vision is not always easy to convey.
The more clearly he can see what has to be done, the fewer reasons
he has to convince anyone else. The conclusion most easily explained
to others is the conclusion reached by long and exhaustive elimina-
tion. The conclusion most difficult to explain is the one reached in a
flash — by a stroke, in fact, of genius. Not every man of genius has
both the flash of inspiration and the wit to invent, afterwards, the
argument which even the densest colleague will accept.

The second argument for dictatorship is that any great political
achievement is a work of art and that a work of art implies an artist.
This is most obvious in architecture and planning. To re-plan the
centre of London as Wren wished to re-plan it after the Fire of
London implied, for success, a genius invested with dictatorial powers.
The genius was available but the dictator was not. Historians were
apt to wonder why nothing was done but need wonder no longer
since they have seen exactly the same opportunity missed again in
exactly the same way. Napoleon 111 had the power denied to Charles
II and George VI, and modern Paris is the result. Wherever there is a
city, a cathedral or a palace of monumental character and seemingly
inevitable design, its plan is normally the concept of a single human
brain. It is, in short, a work of art and subject to the same conditions
in the making as apply to a painting, a statue, a concerto or an ode.
Things of this kind are seldom the result of collaboration, rarely
affected by a majority vote, and never safely attributable to a
committee. The artist normally signs his work, accepting full res-
ponsibility for it. And when he leaves out the signature it is often
because none is needed. No seventeenth century general had to be
told that a fortress had been planned by Vauban; he could see that for
himself. A modern art critic will as readily — if not quite as certainly —
— attribute a canvas to Rembrandt or Vermeer.

Between the planning of a palace and the founding of a city the
difference is only one of degree. The founder of a city may well be the
founder of the state or colony of which it is to be the capital. It is
natural for him to plan the streets and bridges, the boundaries and
the roads. He will reserve the parks and name the hills. Then he will
deal with the drainage and water supply, laying down what is to
constitute an offence against public health. He will define the limits of
the harbour and decide what dues shall be paid for anchorage or
ballast. This will compel him to decide whether the local and harbour
authorities are to be distinct; if they are, he must draft a constitution
for each; and indeed a code of laws. But laws will require amendment

DICTATORSHIP IN DECAY 287

or repeal from time to time, which implies a legislature. They must
be enforced, which implies an executive. ... At what point in this
scheme of work should the single artist, with his vision of the com-
pleted whole, give place to a committee representative of the different
interests? The answer is not obvious, and the founder of a colony
might be forgiven for regarding the whole thing as a single work of
art, and himself the artist whose signature it will bear to all eternity.
Should he later, however, rise to high rank in a country already long
established but in a state of disorder and chaos, he will not think
that the problems to be solved are markedly different from those of
the new colony he formerly ruled with such success. The canvas may
be old but his skill has, if anything, matured. Given a free hand, he
could make something of it yet. If the state is to be a work of art,
there must be an artist: and an artist is essentially a dictator.

The third argument for dictatorship is that a swift decision, one
way or the other, is often preferable to an endless argument. This was
recognised from an early period at sea, where the oldest law still in
force runs thus: — '//; a ship one man is master'. It is nowhere stated
that the one man is the wisest, the oldest or the most experienced. All
that we know about him is that he is one, the master; and not a
committee. Committees at sea have been tried but results have
shown that it is better to decide on something, on anything, rather
than hold a debate as to which policy is best. When a vessel is on a
dangerous lee shore, safety may lie in beating out to sea or, alterna-
tively, in dropping anchor where she is. There may be cogent argu-
ments to put forward in support of either policy. There may well be
two schools of thought, and possibly a third group eager to find a
compromise acceptable to both. But long and sad experience has
shown that a prolonged discussion would be unwise. It :s better to let
the master decide and compel the rest to obey. For the master's
decision (irrespective of his abihty) has a fifty per cent chance of being
right, while the delay caused by an argument has a hundred per cent
chance of being wrong.

What is obviously true at sea is almost as manifestly true in a time
of crisis on land. In a battle, a revolution or riot, the promptness of a
decision is often more important than the decision itself. Victory
may result from going to the left or to the right. It may in fact be
attained equally by either route. But it seldom results from a mere
inability to decide upon one or the other. Nor is this consideration
paramount only on the battlefield. The reasoning which induces us
to place one general in command of an army will equally lead us to
place one headmaster in charge of a school, one leader in charge of an
alpine expedition, one producer in charge of a play, one surgeon in
charge of an operation, one physicist in control of a nuclear physics

288 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

laboratory or one Commissioner in charge of the Metropohtan
Police. We entrust a certain kind of responsibility to an individual,
not primarily because he is outstanding but simply because he is
singular. Granted the wisdom of this practice, the question rises as
to where it should begin and end. The office of dictator was a Roman
expedient to deal with a crisis in public affairs. But such a crisis, with
prompt decisions needed the whole time, may last for years. A state
may be so situated, in fact, as to be in a perpetual state of crisis.
Are there not states then so situated, at least at a certain period, in
which a dictatorship is advisable — or even essential?

Here then are the three chief arguments for dictatorship in general,
based respectively upon the use to be made of genius, the unity of
conception required to produce a work of art and the need for a
single chief if quick decisions are to be made. Such arguments have
been used to justify any dictatorship at any period of history. But the
present century has certain technical features which, while lending
additional point to the arguments previously used, amount to a new
argument in themselves and one apphcable to the present time. The first
feature to observe concerns the art of war. We have all read history
books which emphasise the changes in the art of war which accom-
panied the Renaissance. Firearms, we were told, made the armoured
knight obsolete. He became vulnerable to a hand-gun which the mere
serf could fire. His castle became vulnerable to cannon. And so
political power tended to pass from the nobility to the king; and also,
in some degree, to the peasantry. Feudalism, we were taught to infer,
was finished. Not all the facts cited in support of this theory are
strictly accurate but there is probably something in the theory. What
is less frequently remarked is the way in which the whole tendency
has now been reversed. The great period of democracy in Europe was
in fact the period of massed infantry, with God tending to favour the
big battalions. The War of 1870 was mainly fought with rifle and
bayonet and the First World War was not dissimilar in that respect
until its close. Since 1917 the infantry mass, the conscript army, has
given place to the armoured column and the defended locality. So
far as the social implications of war are concerned, the conditions
to-day are more nearly medieval. The armoured knight is in the field
again with his team of assistants. It is true that it takes the efforts
of an entire community to maintain him there, but this was equally true
in the Middle Ages, when the Feudal system was in fact the organiza-
tion through which this was done. It may be thought premature to
forecast what the political results of this change may be. We can at
least note, however, that conscript armies and massed voting went
out of fashion at about the same time.

Just as the new techniques of industry weaken the general position

DICTATORSHIP IN DECAY 289

of the workers in the productive process as a whole, so do the new
techniques of warfare weaken the potential position of the workers in
a revolutionary crisis. Street barricades and pikestaffs, even plus
muskets, are not enough against tanks and bombers.'

Parallel with changes in the art of war have been the technical
changes in the art of peace. Some of these have been summarised in a
study made of the Managerial Revolution by James Burnham, from
which the above passage is quoted. He points out that the social
position of the working class has deteriorated sharply of recent years.
The skilled worker has been largely superseded by the classes above
and below him; that is, by the experts in engineering and production
planning (who are highly specialised and elaborately trained) and by
the packers and sorters and fasteners (who are hardly trained at all).
Skilled workers of the old trade-union type are at once less important
and less numerous. They could not, by themselves, run the motor-
car factory. It is doubtful whether they could produce a single car.
They no more ask a share in the management than do the share-
holders. In so far as democratic Parliaments have represented capital
and labour, Burnham accounts for their decline in usefulness by ex-
plaining that neither capital nor labour is now as important as
management and that managers and experts do not work through
parliament at all. The decisions that matter are taken in the United
States by bodies like the T.V.A. and in Russia by the Four Year Plan
Commission. Parliaments have not been abolished so much as quietly
by-passed by people whose time is too valuable to waste in that sort
of debate.'^ These technological changes are fairly consistent with
dictatorship of the right kind. They are not at all consistent with
rhetoric about self-evident truths or the sacred mission of the
proletariat. The time for politics, in that sense, has passed.

Comparable in importance to the production expert is the psy-
chologist. Critics of the positive achievements of psychology have
often failed to notice its negative eflfects. It was relatively easy for a
politician of the mid-nineteenth-century — the Marxist period, as we
may call it — to count the votes and announce the Will of the People.
It seemed relatively easy in Victorian England to discover whether
the voters wanted Disraeli or Gladstone. But the whole democratic
theory has been undermined by the psychologist with a process which
began to attract public attention in about 1920.'^ It may have begun
with intelligent people looking back upon the part they and others
had played in the war mania of 1914-18. It took the form of a serious

' The Managerial Revolution. James Burnham. London, 1942. p. 50.

- See Burnham. op. cit. p. 138.

^ See The group mind. W. McDougall. Cambridge, 1920. Instinct and the unconscious.
W. H. R. Rivers. Cambridge, 1920. Instincts of the herd in peace and war. W. Trotter.
London, 1920 and Decline of the West. O. Spengler. New York, 1926.

290 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

attempt to determine why people think, vote and react as they do.
The results could not be otherwise than profoundly disturbing to a
believer in democracy. For one thing, it appeared that the views of a
person as an individual are often quite different from his or her views
as one of a crowd. Freud and McDougall pointed this out and even
tried to decide between the merits of the two opinions the same
individual might express. Such an inquiry has its interest but is not
our present concern. The important fact, politically, is that the
difference exists.^ Research also reveals that

... in a group of three, one person who knows his mind will obtain a
majority vote in three times out of four provided that the other two
members vote at random. About the same degree of control can be
exercised by a bloc vote of 3 over an indifferent population of 20.-

It is true that the word 'indifferent' limits the influence of the few
to matters on which the majority have no decided views. But other
investigations show that the views fervently held by the majority are
susceptible to mental disturbances, mass hypnotism and panic.
Research by mass observation showed that the British public com-
pletely reversed its opinion about conscription during ten days in
1939. Between the 21st and 26th April, fifty-three per cent of those
questioned thought that voluntary recruitment was preferable,
thirty-nine per cent wanted compulsion, eight per cent expressed no
opinion. Conscription was approved in the House of Commons on
27th April. Between the 2nd and 5th May it was found that, of those
questioned, fifty-eight per cent were in favour of conscription,
thirty-eight per cent opposed to it and four per cent were still at a
loss. Nothing had happened in the meanwhile to justify this sudden
change of attitude. Some fifteen per cent of the people had changed
their minds and four per cent previously without an opinion found
that they had acquired one.^ Doris Langley Moore concludes that 'As
a matter of deplorable truth, multitudes of people do not know what
they want. . . .' In the light of this sort of evidence, talk about the Will
of the People loses much of its force. The trained investigator is apt
to ask what sort of will is to be considered sacred— the views of
individuals, the views of the same individuals when herded together,
the views of the herd on Tuesday or the views of the herd on Sunday
afternoon? The suspicion is bound to dawn that the minority of
people who reply 'Don't know' are merely more honest than the rest.

Contemporary with the advance of psychology (and closely
connected with it) was the development of commercial advertising.

1 On the objective study of crowd behaviour. L. S. Penrose. London, 1952. pp. 2-5.
" Ibid. p. 6.

' The Vulgar Heart: An Enquiry into the Sentimental Tendencies of Public Opinion.
D. L. Moore. London, 1945. See pp. 54-55.

DICTATORSHIP IN DECAY 291

It became daily more apparent, between the two World Wars, that
goods do not, of necessity, sell on their merits but through a process
of almost hypnotic suggestion. This has always been partly true but
it remained for the modern expert to make the process of suggestion
a science. Sales were found to depend upon an adroit combination of
colour, form, visual suggestion and the written word. Cunning
appeals were directed to the basic instincts of hunger, thirst, fear and
sex. Results were plotted and graphs were drawn, the more cynical
finally concluding that the usefulness (if any) of the thing to be sold
was irrelevant to the success of the campaign. Experience in advertis-
ing went further to undermine the liberal idea of democracy. For if
the people could be coaxed into buying the worse — and even the more
expensive — of two rival products, it was manifest that they could be
coaxed by the same means into voting for the worse of two rival
candidates for office. It was also increasingly evident that the man
already in office — and more especially the dictator — could use the
considerable resources of government (schools, newspapers, posters,
leaflets, films and radio) to retain the confidence which he possibly
deserved to forfeit. Examples multiplied of this being done.

Faced with this evidence, the democrat will maintain that the real
will of the people can be ascertained and that the common sense of
the electorate will assert itself in the end. But the deathblow to this
theory comes from the accounts received of witch-hunts and treason
trials. We are by now familiar with the spectacle of accused persons
entering the witness box in totalitarian courts and calmly confessing
to the treason which will ensure their condemnation. We are told
that such confessions are extorted by fear, as would indeed seem most
probable. What is significant, however, is that the psychological
treatment used has actually, in many instances, convinced the
victim of his own guilt. He will tell a detailed and circumstantial
story, describing events which never happened and naming accom-
plices of whom he had never previously heard. Persons accused of
witchcraft in the seventeenth century seem to have done the same.
Victims of this sort of treatment are not giving evidence under duress.
They believe what they are saying. They are instances (in an extreme
form) of the success attributable to methods of suggestion. But
milder methods produce results almost as striking. The child enrolled
in the Hitler Youth ends with a mind so filled with legend as to be
unreceptive of fact. The American voter is so conditioned by propa-
ganda about communism that he will refuse to recognise the existence
of China. The British voter is so conditioned by propaganda about
Parliament that he thinks the party system is inevitable. The British
housewife has been so conditioned by advertisement that she will
buy the worse instead of the better product. At what point in this

292 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

series does suggestion end? At what point does free will begin? There
is no possible answer. The study of the art of suggestion has made
nonsense of democratic theory. It has also provided the dictator with
a technique, not of oppression but of gaining a continued and willing
assent to his rule.

So far we have been considering the theory of dictatorship and the
means by which twentieth century dictatorship has been sustained.
It might well be asked what this has to do with dictatorship in decay.
The answer is that its merits and defects are the same, its success and
decay simultaneous. The dictator rules, as we have seen, by virtue of
his inspiration, by virtue of his artistry and by virtue of his ability to
make firm and rapid decisions. He rules in this century, moreover,
in a world unsuitable for democracy and at least technically favour-
able for dictatorship. But dictatorship soon becomes decadent. That
feeling of inspired genius by which the dictator is at first sustained, and
for which he is admired, makes him impatient of contradiction. He
will have no one near him of comparable ability. He demands
obedience and resents opposition. How must he regard those who
criticise the plans of the destined leader? They are stupid. Worse,
they are disloyal. As Hitler himself observed:

. . . the majority can never replace the man. The majority represents
not only ignorance but also cowardice. And just as a hundred block-
heads do not equal one man of wisdom, so a hundred poltroons are
incapable of any political line of action that requires moral strength
and fortitude.^

So a dictator will tend to surround himself with men less able than
himself — with men beside whom he cannot be made to look small —
with men unlikely to have views of their own. He wants obedience,
help, sympathy and admiration. He does not want to be told that his
facts are wrong or his policy mistaken.

As an artist he is even less patient of criticism. The whole point in
appointing one supreme planner is to ensure the unified conception
of the plan. But what will become of the central theme if there are to
be niggling amendments by ignorant busybodies — by people too
small to appreciate the grand outline of the master plan? The sense
of purpose will be lost. Sweeping lines and generalisations will
become blurred and indistinct. Rules will be loaded with exceptions.
Better to ignore all paltry objections and keep the main object in
view! The same reasoning applies to the leader's swift and final
ruling. This becomes far more difficult if advisers are going to talk
over every issue. It becomes a question indeed whether the adviser
who emphasises imaginary obstacles can be whole-heartedly behind
the national effort. Is it not more probable that he wishes that eff'ort

' Hitler, op. dt. p. 81.

DICTATORSHIP IN DECAY 293

to fail? Has he not, for that matter, been bribed by the other side?
What is needed is, first and foremost, loyalty. So the leader must be
surrounded by the loyal, the steadfast, the reliable; not men who
make difficulties but those who suggest expedients. To put the case
more briefly, only the second-rate are wanted, and those only while
they remain consistently acquiescent. If brilliance is wanted at all,
it will be on the advertising side, in explaining the orthodox view to
the people, or perhaps to other countries.

The dictator who assumes responsibility for all major decisions,
surrounding himself with mediocrities so as to be unrivalled and un-
opposed, must live under an appalling strain. He is as subject as other
people to illness and overwork. To normal ailments he must add the
strain of public life and the fear of assassination. To relax for more
than a short time would be to admit that others can govern as well as
he — an impossible admission for one who claims to be unique. Even
if he does not fall sick, he will grow old. As time goes on, inspiration
will fail. Large scale and long-term plans will have less attraction for
a man who no longer expects to see them fulfilled. The dictator will
begin to suspect that his decisions will be reversed as soon as he dies.
Fatigue sets in and he is no longer able to decide instantly upon a
policy. He is no longer the man he was. He sees this fact reflected in
the faces of his staff". Are they (or is this imagination?) exchanging
significant looks behind his back? Do they dare to think that he, the
Leader, is losing grip? This is the point at which dictatorship begins
to suffer from the disease which earlier proved helpful. The legend,
the myth begins to react on its inventor. No one dare^ to tell the
Leader what is actually happening. Sober facts he will regard as
pessimism; and pessimism as disloyalty. So bad news comes to be
increasingly hidden from him. Worse still, he comes to believe his
own propaganda. The deceiver of others ends even by deceiving him-
self. He lives finally in a world of unreality, in a world of his own
imagining. From then he can be regarded as practically insane.

The life of Adolf Hitler off'ers, not the only example of this tendency
but the example of which we have the fullest data. Mein Kanipf is
the work of a sane man, unbalanced in some of his hatreds but
realistic in judging what could and could not be done. Sane he re-
mained for many years, revealing a remarkable flair for politics and
even for strategy. 'He was a systematic thinker'' says one historian.
'Never' says another 'was Hitler's ability more clearly shown than
in the way he recovered from this set-back' [i.e. of 9th November,
1923]. It was in these words that Hitler addressed the court which
tried him: —

The man who is born to be a dictator is not compelled; he wills it.

' Hitler's Table Talk. 1941-44. Ed. by H. R. Trevor-Roper. London, 1953. p. viii.

294 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

He is not driven forward, but drives himself. There is nothing im-
modest about this. Is it immodest for a worker to drive himself towards
heavy labour? Is it presumptuous of a man with the high forehead of a
thinker to ponder through the nights till he gives the world an in-
vention? The man who feels called upon to govern a people has no
right to say: If you want me or summon me, I will co-operate. No, it
is his duty to step forward.^

These are the words of a remarkable man, a man of intellect and
vision. Nor is the man described by Rauschning in 1932-33 other than
sane. As the war approached, however, and after it had begun,
Hitler began to assume heavier and heavier responsibilities, trusting
nobody. He made himself Minister for War in 1938. In 1941 he
assumed the command of the army (O.K.H.) in addition to the
command of the armed forces as a whole (O.K.W.). In January, 1942,
he could speak of his 'unbounded confidence, confidence in myself,
so that nothing, whatever it may be, can throw me out of the saddle,
so that nothing can shake me'.'- That represented the high-water mark
of his belief in himself and his destiny. Three months later, in March,
his hair was grey and he had fits of giddiness. He had by then con-
vinced himself that he had saved the situation by superseding his
Army High Command. He drew up his plans for victory over Russia
in 1942. Haider, who warned him of the Russian strength, was
shouted down.'' Hitler quoted Nietzche and Clausewitz and removed
the generals who disagreed with him. Goebbels wrote that 'As long
as he lives and is among us in good health, as long as he can give us
the strength of his spirit, no evil can touch us'.* Hitler now demanded
and was given by law still further and more absolute powers. He
personally directed the drive of 1942 against Stalingrad and towards
the Caucasus and it is generally recognised that he could have gained
either objective if he would only have restricted himself to the one.
It was a major strategic error, made worse by Hitler's refusal to
believe his own intelligence reports.

When a statement was read to him which showed that Stalin would
still be able to muster another one to one and a quarter million men in
the region north of Stalingrad (besides half a million more in the
Caucasus), and which proved that the Russian output of first-line tanks
amounted to twelve hundred a month. Hitler flew at the man who was
reading with clenched fists and foam in the corners of his mouth, and
forbade him to read such idiotic twaddle.^

By November, 1942, Hitler had sustained a definite and large-
scale defeat.

' Hitler, a Study in Tyrannv. Alan Bullock. London, 1952. p. 106.

'Ibid.p.G\4.

' /hid. pp. 616-617.

' Ibid. p. 617.

■ Ibid. p. 628.

DICTATORSHIP IN DECAY 295

In the course of 1943 Hitler, who looked fifteen years older (accord-
ing to Goering) since the war began, experienced a trembling of his
left arm and left leg. He was taking drugs constantly and receiving
daily injections. By the winter of 1944-45 he was meeting all oppo-
sition or warning with hysterical outbursts of rage. 'He had', says
Guderian, 'a special picture of the world, and every fact had to be
fitted into that fancied picture. As he believed, so the world must
be. . . .'^ By February, 1945, he was a physical wreck, an old man with
grey skin, shuffling walk, trembling down the left side, totally
exhausted and yet ready to scream with rage when even momentarily
opposed. This was the Hitler so well described by Trevor-Roper:-

So Hitler ordered; but his orders bore no relation now to any
reality. He was moving imaginary battalions, making academic plans,
disposing non-existent formations. The Steiner attack was the last,
most symbolic instance of Hitler's personal strategy; it never took
place.

This cloud-cuckoo-land operation took its imaginary course in
April, 1945. Berlin was by then partly in Russian hands. Hitler
shrieked at Gottlieb Berger 'Everyone has deceived me! no one has
told me the truth! the armed forces have lied to me!' All this was
strictly accurate. Night was Falling on the Gods. There was no
alternative to suicide and Hitler duly shot himself on 30th April. He
was already senile although only just fifty-six years old. His forces
surrendered on May 4th and Alan Bullock remarks that 'The Third
Reich outlasted its founder by just one week'.^

This story of rapid decay is, of course, complicated by circum-
stances unconnected with Hitler's moral and physical collapse. But
it is tolerably certain that the Third Reich would in any case have
died with him. We know, however, that Hitler at one time (in 1942)
visualised having a regular successor, an elected chief with absolute
authority, chosen by a Senate meeting in secret conclave.

Although a State founded on such principles can lay no claim to
eternity, it might last for eight to nine centuries. The thousand-year-
old organization of the Church is a proof of this — and yet this entire
organization is founded on nonsense. What I have said should a
fortiori be true of an organization founded on reason.*

This suggested period of eight or nine centuries proved to be an
overestimate. It did not last eight or nine days. Nor, in more favour-
able circumstances, could it have lasted very much longer. There
was no possible successor, as Hitler himself had realised:

' Bullock, op. cit. p. 701.

= The Last Days of Hitler. H. R. Trevor-Roper. London, 1952. p. 123.

= Bullock, op. cit. p. 732.

' Hitler's Table Talk. H. R. Trevor-Roper. London, 1953. p. 389.

296 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

... If anything happens to me Germany will be left without a leader.
1 have no successor. The first, Hess, is mad; the second, Goering, has
lost the sympathy of the people, and the third, Himmler, would be
rejected by the Party. ^

The historian, while accepting Hitler's verdict on these three, must
be more impressed with the fact that they would have been hopeless
in supreme power even if acceptable to the rest. Goering had run to
seed. Himmler — 'Faithful Heinrich' — was a stupid, insignificant,
pedantic ex-Sergeant-Major, naive enough to believe the Nazi
mythology. Joseph Goebbels, ablest of the Party, was no leader. In
Albert Speer and Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler had two technicians of
genius but they never aspired to more than expert knowledge and
Schacht ended in prison. Ribbentrop, Rosenberg and Robert Ley
were nonentities, fit members of what Trevor-Roper calls 'a set of
flatulent clowns'. As for the soldiers, those of any ability were
eliminated — Haider (too outspoken) being told to commit suicide in
1944. Those that remained — Keitel, Jodl, Burgdorf and the rest —
were mainly remarkable for their subservience to Hitler, who rejected
them all (in his last days) in making Doenitz his successor. The fact
that Hitler ended with a circle of second-rate sycophants about him
was, of course, no coincidence but the logical consequence of dictator-
ship. A Leader who wishes to appear supreme and unrivalled in
policy, strategy, tactics, finance, architecture, planning and ideas,
cannot afford to employ assistants who rise above mediocrity, least
of all as generals. But what success can the forces achieve if all the
best commanders are systematically murdered or dismissed? Dic-
tatorship decays by the laws which govern its very nature. It could not
last for more than a lifetime in any case. In practice it may not last as
long. The dictator believes in his own genius — how otherwise could
he have seized power? — so he resents opposition. He believes in his
own vision of the State — so he will listen to no advice. He believes in
the need for centralised authority — so he will delegate no power to
others. The natural results are that he is surrounded by flattering
nonentities; that he is never told the truth; and that he is driven mad
by overwork. He is apt to end as a physical wreck, unable even to
make the decisions which no one else is allowed to make for him.

' Bullock, op. cit. p. 705.

CHAPTER XXIV

Bonapartism

THE Collapse of dictatorship owing to the disability, defeat or
death of the dictator is unlikely to prelude a more than momen-
tary return to democracy or oligarchy. Much depends, it is true, upon
the length of time which has elapsed since the dictator first came to
power. Ordinarily speaking, however, the tendency will be for the
people to have forgotten how to govern themselves. Democratic
politicians, often elderly men, may well die off — even in the course
of nature — during a dictatorship, leaving no one available with any
experience of power. The dictator's own followers, should they
survive, will usually turn out to be nonentities. Members of any
previous aristocracy will have nothing left but vague pretensions and
hatreds. Even the middle-class may have lost, during previous
revolutions, any claim to leadership it could ever boast. The dictator's
fall will leave a vacancy which might seem, at first sight, ready for the
next dictator to fill. But that solution often proves impracticable, at
any rate in the first instance. For the previous dictator will normally
have seen to it that he should have no obvious successor. He will
have killed all possible rivals. If there is to be another dictatorship it
will be the result of further bloodshed; for it is only in the course of
fighting that a new leader is likely to emerge. As against this, the fall
of the inspired Leader does not always leave the people in the mood
for war. Of war they have, not infrequently, had enough.

So the end of a period of dictatorship may often predispose a
people towards monarchy ; which is indeed, probably, the form of rule
appropriate for them. Kingship may off"er them stability without
demanding from them the civic virtues which they simply do not
possess. Kingship is the natural aftermath to a Caesar, a Cromwell or
a Napoleon. But much depends upon the circumstances. When there
is a recent tradition of monarchy, the throne is there to fill. When,
however, the tradition has been broken, there may be a tendency to
give royal honours to the dictator's heir. It is this rather odd prefer-
ence which accounts, in part, for the restoration of Napoleon III and
even for the brief rule of Richard Cromwell. Bonapartism is thus the
name given in France to the cult of those who demand the restoration
of the empire, not in the name of De Gaulle but for the benefit of
Napoleon's collateral descendants. One would have thought that

297

298 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

believers in the principle of inspired leadership would have sought to
instal a soldier (if one could be found) of comparable talent. One
would have thought that believers in hereditary succession would
have demanded, as some indeed do, the restoration of the ancient
kingship. It is an odd confusion of ideas which can favour an
hereditary line of inspired leaders; although no more odd perhaps
than the British trust in hereditary champions of egalitarian democ-
racy. This, however, is the basis of Bonapartism; a term we may use
to define the attempt made to restore monarchy after a period of
dictatorship but without reinstating the previous royal house. It
involves founding an entirely new dynasty.

The history of China provides us with many good examples of this
development. Chinese dynasties lasted for about two and a half
centuries each, on an average, their period of decline representing a
phase of oligarchy or democracy, half concealed by the observance of
kingly ritual. The dictators who secured imperial office were of
varied origin. Liu Chi (or Pang), who became emperor in 202 B.C.
was a commoner of officer rank. Wu-ti was succeeded by the nephew
of the late Empress. From the disorder which followed the socialistic
experiments of Wang Mang there emerged, as supreme, a distant
cousin of the former Han Emperor. Li, founder of the T'ang dynasty,
who succeeded after the murder of Yang Kuang, was of a ducal
family. Chao K'wang-Yin, regent in a.d. 959 and emperor in 960,
was of similarly respectable origin. Chu Yuanchang, on the other
hand, who captured Nanking and made himself emperor in 1368,
was a monk of humble origin. The problem for the Chinese political
theorist was therefore to find justification for the revolt which brought
the current dynasty into power. He had to do so, moreover, without
lending any general sanction to future revolts designed to expel it.
This problem was solved by teaching that the bad emperor was not
emperor at all and that the current emperor was a model of the
virtues which his predecessor had lacked.

This process is well exemplified in the revolution which established
Chu Yuanchang as first emperor of the Ming dynasty. Revolt in this
instance was directed against the Mongols and Chu Yuanchang was
able to enlist nationalist feelings on his side, expressing his views in
a manifesto which has survived and which reads: —

We Chinese have regarded the ruler as the father of the people, the
court as the center of the nation, and moral principles as principles of
government. The conduct of the Mongol monarchs violates the
Chinese sense of morality and cannot be exemplary. The Mongol
ministers are dictatorial, the Mongol censors arbitrary, and the
Mongol judges prejudiced. ... It is said that 'no barbarians ever reign
for a century'. This saying must come true, now that we have

BONAPARTISM 299

started a nation-wide revolution to overthrow the Mongol regime.^

The revolution succeeded and had the effect of installing as dictator
one of the most ignorant, suspicious and brutal characters ever
recorded in Chinese history. Chu Yuanchang followed good dicta-
torial practice in executing all the ministers and generals who had
assisted his rise to power. He ruled directly, combining the offices of
emperor, premier and commander-in-chief. He founded a new
dynasty, nevertheless, one which lasted until 1644. There followed a
period of disorder, during which Li Tse-Cheng tried to make himself
emperor; a period which ended with the establishment of the Ch'ing
dynasty in about 1659. The Ch'ing or Manchu emperors then held
sway until 1911, using Chinese terminology to justify an alien rule.

It sounds very Confucian and Chinese when one reads the Manchu
proclamation that the 'wheel of tlie world' had turned, the decline of
one dynasty had made room for another, the Ming had lost the
heavenly mandate. 'Through heaven's favor and the new emperor's
blessing' the Manchus had conquered Peking.-

It is this phrase 'the mandate of heaven' which is of particular
significance.

The doctrine of the mandate of heaven was a feature of Chinese
political thought from an early period. It was adopted by Tung
Chung-shu (circa 179-104 B.C.) adviser to the emperor Wu Ti, who
was first responsible for making Confucian ethics the basis of official
teaching and the key to public office. The Confucian ideal, none too
precise in the first instance and afterwards blended with concepts
derived in fact from other thinkers, could be made an invaluable ally
of those actually in power. Many Confucian ideas have no immediate
and practical application but some, as interpreted by Mencius (and
Tung Chung-shu) could be very usefully emphasised. 'God creates
the people' said Mencius, 'and appoints for them emperors and
teachers'.^ 'The Master said: — "The people may be made to follow
a course, but not to understand the reason why".'* There was no
nonsense in Confucian theory about equality. People differed from
each other in position, wealth, age, wisdom and ability. Some were
fitted to rule and others fit only to obey. But neither was fitness to
rule a matter of noble descent. How could it be in a land where the
ruling dynasty had gained power in a revolution which some might
remember and of which all would have heard? No doctrine will do

• Men and Ideas. An Informal History of Chinese Political Thought. Lin Moiishcng.
New York, 1942. p. 131.

" The Origin of Manchu rule in China. Frontier and Bureaucracy as Interacting Forces
in the Chinese Empire. Franz Michael. Baltimore, 1942. p. 116.

' History of Chinese Political Thought during the early Tsin Period. Liang Chi-Chao.
Trans, by L. T. Chen. London, 1930. p. 50. Liang Chi-Chao was a pupil of K'ang
Yuwei, last of the Confucians.

■* Hsiintze, Moulder of Confucianism. H. H. Dubs. London, 1927.

300 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

which fails to show that the last revolution was in accordance with
the order of Heaven and in response to the wishes of men. The
previous dynasty must have lost the heavenly mandate. On this point
Mencius is explicit.

... 'In order to be a king one must fulfil the functions of a king.
When a king fails to do that, he loses his claim to be the ruler of the
people'. On this point the following conversation is illuminating:
"King Hsuan of Chi asked, 'Is it authentic that Tong put the Emperor
Chieh in exile, and that King Wu led the expedition against the
Emperor Chow?' Mencius replied 'It is so recorded in the book'.
'Is it permissible then for a minister to put to death his sovereign?'
'One who outrages the virtue 'Jen' is a robber; one who outrages
propriety is a ruffian. A ruffian or a robber is a mere commoner. I have
heard that a man named Chow was decapitated ; but I have never heard
that a sovereign was put to death". '^

Political advisers clearly had their anxious moments. They had
somehow to combine their approval of past revolution with an
assurance of loyalty in the event of any future revolt. They were like
early Hanoverian divines preaching the doctrine of divine right —
those who gained their bishopric had earned it. But the Confucian
doctrine of Names evades the difficulty rather neatly. The king who is
not saintly and benevolent is not king at all. He has deposed himself.
He has virtually abdicated. It was the usefulness of this, among
other doctrines, which induced Tung Chung-shu to advise Wu Ti to
adopt Confucianism as the official doctrine.

Your humble servant proposes that all doctrines that deviate from
the arts and classics of Confucius be suppressed completely. Once
subversive and pernicious doctrines are quelled, the unity of the
Empire may be maintained and laws and rules may be so clearly stated
that the people will know what to follow.'^

Confucianism provides, or can be distorted to provide, a valuable
support for monarchy. It does not, however, justify a despotic rule.
For the emperor could retain the mandate of heaven only by display-
ing, or seeming to display, the virtues which such a mandate would
seem to imply. The ruler was considerably fettered by the etiquette
and conventions which surrounded his office. It was no part of the
accepted legend that the emperor was (as in Japan and elsewhere) a
descendant of the gods. Instead, it was the convention to assume that
the emperor owed his position to his superior virtue. The story was
told of the emperor Yao (2356 B.C.) who offered to abdicate in

' Liang Chi-Chao. op. cit. p. 62. The virtue 'Jen' is, rougiily speaking, the practice of
doing for others what you think they should do for you.

^ Men and Ideas, An Informal History of Chinese Political Tlwiig/it. Lin Mousheng.
New York, 1942. p. 148. See also In Quest of Civilisation. R. Latham. London, 1946.
p. 136 et seq.

BONAPARTISM 301

favour of the hermit, Hsu Yu. It was held that only saintly kings and
virtuous officers could guide the people by their character and ex-
ample. Monarchical government is best but only through the ruler's
display of benevolence, righteousness, propriety and knowledge.
Confucius perceived, incidentally, that a useful test of efficiency is
that of time. He held that a kingdom ruled by an aristocracy would
be lost within ten generations and one ruled by the many would be
lost in three. ^ Only virtuous kings could rule indefinitely, governing
so quietly that the people might not realise that they were governing
at all.

The more restrictions and prohibitions are in the Empire, the poorer
grow the people. The more weapons the people have, the more troubled
is the state. The more there is cunning and skill, the more startling
events happen. The more mandates and laws are enacted the more
there will be thieves and robbers. (Lao Tzu).^

The moral pressure brought to bear upon the emperor by a
widespread reliance upon his virtue must have been considerable.
There were bad rulers but fewer perhaps than there might have been
had no conventional virtue been attributed to them. There were
tyrants but less oppressive perhaps than they would have been if not
continually reminded of the good example they were supposed to set.
In at least one important respect, moreover, the conventional virtue
coincided with the most everyday prudence. For the good king had to
listen to the remonstrances of his ministers and the complaints of his
people. 'If an emperor has seven outspoken ministers' said Confucius,
'he cannot lose his empire'. As for public relations, 'to gag the voice
of the people is more dangerous than to dam the flow of a river. . . .
The wise ruler encourages men to speak out freely'.^ More than that,
the system of censorship and the appointment of official chroniclers
used to provide the ruler with official critics, some to remonstrate
and some to record his faults.

. . . while Chinese government in form lends itself to despotism, it is so
surrounded by theories of virtue and good actions that in practice
despotism is not only checked but to a great extent actually done
away with. The teachings of the philosophers with their restraining
influences and the almost universal acceptance of propriety as a basis
of action have led to a condition where the ruler is constantly re-
minded of what is right, what is proper, what ought to be done, and
how one should act.*

' Chinese Political Thought. E. D. Thomas. London, 1928. p. 154.

- Ibid. p. 159. For the Chinese detestation of economic restrictions see The Economic
Principles of Confucius and his school. Chen Huan-Chang. 2 vols. New York, 1911.
Later Confucians would not even discuss economics.

^Government and Politics of China. Ch'ien Tuang Sheng. Harvard, 1950. See pp.
22-23.

'Thomas, op. cit. p. 184.

302 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

This was hardly compatible with despotism; nor even (one might
add) with progress.

The emperor who was thus expected to keep in close touch with
public opinion and well v/ithin the bounds of established custom, had
the further general duty of being successful. The mandate of heaven,
like the Calvinist proof of being one of the elect, implied a visible
token of divine favour. Military defeat was not normally attributed to
tactical error but rather to the withdrawal of heaven's mandate.
After a reverse, the emperor had to examine his conscience, to dis-
cover how he could have offended heaven. The Chinese had no love of
lost causes. They were more inclined to join the winning side. There
was therefore a tendency in public bulletins to pass lightly over the
less encouraging items of news, bringing into warfare that atmos-
phere of unreality which was never wholly absent from politics.
Fictions are useful but not perhaps beyond the point at which fact
becomes totally obscured.

The ever-victorious emperor had the further responsibility of
making the rain fall. The more inconvenient manifestations of nature
were clearly attributable to his shortcomings. The drought of 1832
brought the emperor to his knees before a public altar, complaining
to heaven that no rain had fallen all the summer. The prayer with
which he memorialised heaven included the following words:

... I, the minister of Heaven, am placed over mankind, and am
responsible for keeping the world in order and tranquilising the people.
Although it is now impossible for me to sleep or eat with composure,
although I am scorched with grief and tremble with anxiety, still, after
all, no genial and copious showers have been obtained. . . . Looking
up, I consider that Heaven's heart is benevolence and love. The sole
cause is the daily deeper atrocity of my sins; but little sincerity and
little devotion. Hence 1 have been unable to move Heaven's heart, and
bring dov/n abundant blessings. . . .

... I feel impelled, by ten thousand considerations, to . . . assail
Heaven, examine myself, and consider my errors; looking up and
hoping that I may obtain pardon. . . .

Prostrate T beg imperial Heaven [HwangTien] to pardon my ignorance
and stupidity, and to grant me self-renovation ; for myriads of innocent
people are involved by me, the One man. My sins are so numerous it is
difficult to escape from them. Summer is past and autumn arrived; to
wait longer will really be impossible. Knocking head, I pray imperial
deliverance — a speedy and divinely beneficial rain, to save the people's
lives and in some degree redeem my iniquities. Oh, alas! imperial
Heaven, observe these things. Oh, alas! imperial Heaven, be gracious
to them. I am inexpressibly grieved, alarmed, and frightened. Rever-
ently this memorial is presented.^

This prayer was, of course, a ritual form of words; not the

' Thomas, op. cit. p. 160.

BONAPARTISM 303

spontaneous petition of a man whose throne is in actual danger. The
Han dynasty was overthrown by plague but the Manchus were not
seriously endangered by drought. There is on the other hand much
that is significant in the self-examination which forms the central
theme of the memorial. The emperor asks himself whether he has
neglected to sacrifice, whether he has been proud and extravagant,
whether he has regularly attended to the affairs of government,
whether he has been just, whether he has overspent on mausolea and
gardens, whether he has appointed the right men to office, whether he
has listened to the appeals of the oppressed, whether there has been
needless slaughter in war, whether relief has been properly distributed
and whether revolts have been humanely suppressed? These were
evidently the sort of sins of which emperors were sometimes accused,
and the list reveals an acute sense of responsibility, not only to Heaven
but to the public.

To the Chinese system of attributing the mandate of Heaven to
whatever ruler has grasped and retained the supreme power, the
nearest parallel is to be found in Islam. Muhammad (born c. a.d.
570) left no definite scheme of government apart from his religious
teaching and example. Nor did the attempt to provide him with
successors in office last for more than a few years. He did, however,
enjoin obedience to rulers.

. . . Obey your rulers whatever may hap, for if they bid you do any-
thing different to what 1 have taught you, they shall be rewarded for it
and you will be rewarded for your obedience. . . .'

The political theory thus enunciated appears to imply that all earthly
authority is by divine appointment, the duty of the subjects is to obey,
whether the ruler is just or unjust. . . . Such a doctrine seems also to be
implied in the following Tradition in which the Prophet says: 'When
God wishes good for a people, He sets over them the forbearing and
wise, and places their goods in the hands of generous rulers; but when
God wishes evil for a people, He sets over them the witless and
base. . . }

In point of fact, the various territories occupied by the followers of
Islam speedily fell apart, each under a separate ruler, many of these
rulers eventually aspiring to the title of Sultan. Provided he is a
Muslim, the ruler of a predominantly Muslim State is entitled to
obedience, by whatever means he has come to power. He is 'the
shadow of Allah upon earth'. Islamic law and custom would permit
a series of non-hereditary rulers. Their power would fall short, how-
ever, of dictatorship. For the Muslim ruler is subject to Muslim Law,
which he cannot amend, repeal or even interpret. His duties are

' The Caliphate. Sir Thomas W. Arnold. Oxford, 1924. See pp. 48-50. Sec also
Muhammad' A Mercy to all the Nations'. Al-Haji Qassim AM Jairazbhoy. London, 1934.
p. 239. and The Law of War and Peace in Islam. Majid Khadduri. London, 1940.

304 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

theoretically restricted to judgment, taxation, the Friday worship
and the Holy War.^ As compared, however, with the Chinese
monarch, the Muslim ruler was less responsible to the people. Mis-
fortunes in China might be attributed to the sins of the emperor.
Similar events among Muslim peoples would be attributed rather to
the sins of the people themselves. This left them with no religious
sanction for deposing the ruler. Neither, however, did it restrain
them from offering obedience to his successor, should the government
chance to be overturned.

While Chinese and Islamic custom both used thus to offer a ready
means of converting a dictator into a regularly appointed and even
hereditary monarch, the same cannot be said of countries in which the
idea of kingship has actually died out. We have seen that South
American Republics have seldom managed to turn dictatorship into
monarchy. The tradition has not been alive and there has always been
the definite opposition of those with liberal or republican views. It
cannot be supposed that the escape from dictatorship in such states
can ever be easy, and historical examples would seem to suggest that
it is impossible without foreign intervention and the virtual annexa-
tion of the territory by another and more efficiently organised power.
Fortunate, in that case, are the states like Spain and Italy in which
monarchy might easily revive. Granted, however, that such a revival
were possible and granted, moreover, that all or most of the dicta-
torial states of the twentieth century could be transformed somehow
into monarchies of a more or less stable kind, this would be no final
solution to the political problem. We have no reason to suppose that
the monarchies thus restored would prove much more permanent
than any other form of government. There would seem to be cyclic
fashions and an inherent law of change. Were we to accept the teach-
ing of history we should conclude that the political units we now
describe as nations are likely to repeat the political sequence through
which most of them have passed. Some, it is true, are too small to
experience all these changes; and two, perhaps, of a federal pattern,
may prove too large. For the rest we might be tempted to predict a
continuance of the treadmill round, ending only with the end of
civilisation itself; a finish not necessarily very remote. Such a predic-
tion would, however, be unjustified. For, while the course of history
may reveal a trend, it does not prove that the trend is inevitable.
There are instances of a danger being avoided, provided only that the
danger has been perceived.

' See Developineni of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory.
D. B. Macdonald. London, 1903. See also Mohammad Theories of Finance. Nicolas P.
Aghanides. New York, 1916: An Introduction to the Sociology of Islam. R. Levy. 2
vols. London, c. 1931 ; Muslim Institutions. Maurice Gaudefroy Demombynes, London,
1950; and The Legacy of Islam. Ed. by Sir Thomas Arnold. Oxford, 1931.

EPILOGUE

IT is no part of the historian's business to deal with the future. In
so far, therefore, as this book is an academic study, its conclusions
have already been reached. The story has been told of how monarchy
arises, to be superseded by aristocracy, which is replaced by democ-
racy, which ends in dictatorship, which may well be the prelude to
monarchy again. The sequence is by no means invariable but it can
be shown, with some plausibility, that the tendency exists. The attempt
has been made to indicate, in outline, some of the merits and defects
of each form of rule. Some description has been attempted of the
works in which political theorists have sought to define, assess, praise
and decry the various patterns which government has assumed. The
historian can do no more than that, unless it be to point out that the
assumption of a finality reached seems to be the illusion common to
almost every age. But while the historian, as such, can go no further
than we have gone — and may be thought rash to have gone as far —
the author of a book may justly shrink from leaving unanswered the
questions which an intelligent reader must feel bound to ask. He may
perhaps be forgiven for attempting to answer beforehand the
questions which might otherwise reach him by post. He may even be
allowed, in doing so, to express what is merely opinion and quit, for
the time being, the realms of fact.

Several questions may have occurred to the reader who can claim
to be still in the hunt, but the first will certainly be this: 'Which form
of rule is best?' There must, after all, be something unfinished about a
book which does no more than define, describe and collate. In this
instance, the inconclusive finish would be emphasised by the fact that
no single form of rule has been singled out for commendation. The
author may seem rather to have concentrated upon the defects which
cause impermanence, leaving the reader to conclude with the psalmist
that all is vanity. But that is not the message that the author wishes
to convey. To the reader's question he must reply, it is true, that he
sees no great merit in any of the forms of rule he has had to describe.
They represent phases of human experience from which some wisdom
may be gained, but no one of them would represent finality even if
finality were to be reached at all. No one, in fact, represents any
marked improvement upon any other. They reveal, taken together,
an almost startling lack of progress. The fact, however, that progress

305

306 THH EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

SO far has been slight does not mean that progress is impossible; and
the object of this epilogue is to assert the author's belief that progress
may yet be made.

Our starting point is the contrast between the progress made in
science and the stagnation in political thought since 1900; or indeed
since 1850. During the last century we have had a series of industrial,
technical and scientific revolutions affecting the whole of human life.
During the last fifty years we have had the revolutionary changes
brought about by the car, the film, the radio, the aircraft and the
submarine. We have seen startling progress in chemistry, physics,
biology and medicine. We have heard almost monthly of scientific
developments ranging from penicillin to jet propulsion, from nuclear
fission to radar. Life has been technically transformed in twenty
different ways. During the same period, political progress has been
nil. Theory has been at a stand-still and practice shows perceptible
retrogression. No one is more acutely aware of this contrast than the
modern traveller by air. The organisation of the Air Line is relatively
efficient, modern, smooth and stream-lined. The aircraft is a technical
achievement which would have been impossible ten years ago and
which will certainly be obsolete ten years hence. The crew are highly
trained technicians handling costly equipment. The passage is, by all
previous standards, unbelievably swift and safe. But the traveller, on
landing anywhere, finds himself confronted by a political organization
which is practically medieval. The passport and visa formalities are
of a kind which our Victorian ancestors regarded as belonging to a
remote and barbarous antiquity. The customs shed reminds us at
once of the gifts formerly lavished by traders on the chiefs of savage
peoples. The currency regulations date from some period before
Adam Smith. The fuss about alcohol seems to be based on the ideas
of the more remote Arab tribes. Books are liable to be confiscated and
burnt by darkly brooding inquisitors. The forms to be filled in have
been apparently devised in the nursery by children so backward as
to be almost imbecile. The contrast, in short, between skilled pilots
and more or less ilHterate officials is very painful indeed.

Why have the physical sciences advanced and why has political
science stood still? Before we attempt to answer that question we
must remind ourselves that progress and improvement are not iden-
tical. Confronted by the contrast between the old and the new,
Mahatma Gandhi came to the conclusion that modern industry is
itself sinful and that moral progress must involve a return to the
simplicities. He certainly pointed the way to a method (and perhaps
the only method) by which democracy could be made to work. His
views will certainly repay the closest study. It may be doubted, how-
ever, whether a world-wide return to the simplicities is even possible.

bPILOGUE 307

The simple village life is subject, under primitive conditions, to famine,
drought, epidemic, flood, storm and pest. Can we now ask the peasant
to discard the help of the railway, road, pipe-line, electric-cable,
clinic, dam, injection and spray? With no modern equipment the
world could not support its present population in comfort — still l^ss
the population of the future. We could not feed, clothe, maintain or
even restrict the present numbers without the aid of industry and
science. While the reversal of the present trend might seem attractive,
it will be assumed here that it is impracticable. It might well be shown
that Gandhi's condemnation of western medicine is justified and that
religious meditation is better than any drug. Even so it would seem
unlikely that people will now discard all they have been taught to
value. We must assume, however reluctantly, that scientific progress
is not to be reversed and that the problem is to discover why there
has been no comparable progress in politics.

The solution of this problem depends upon a clear understanding
of what scientific method is. We cannot help but suspect that the
methods of science, if applied to political problems, would produce
the sort of progress that we have observed in physics. What methods
are these which produce such remarkable results? Basic, we suppose,
to all scientific method is the desire to find out. Real progress begins
at the point at which the scientist admits his ignorance. And this
point, as a matter of historic fact, comes fairly late in the history of
science. The main handicap of the medieval scientist lay not in his
ignorance but in the fact that he knew it all already. He had read
Aristotle and St. Augustine, Hippocrates and Galen. He was primed
with the eternal principles of his art, approved by his Faculty and
memorised by his pupils. No real progress was possible until they had
been stuffed in the waste paper basket. What were these dogma ?

Physicians believed, following Hippocrates, that everything is
founded on a united confluence of all the humours. They considered
that phlebotomy or blood-letting is useful but only if governed by
the movements of the stars. They knew that a drink made from
mistletoe will at once make women fertile and prevent poisoning.
They were impressed with the obvious danger of eating pork un-
accompanied by wine. To avoid catching the plague the correct
thing — as is well known — is to purge oneself with pills of aloes. As
for syphilis (when it appeared in the later middle ages) there could be
no doubt that it was due to a corruption of the air. When in doubt,
medieval or sixteenth century physicians might turn to specialists
in zoology, chemistry and astrology. Nor would they turn in vain.
Experts were at hand to assure them that the unicorn or monoceros
is guilty of excessive pride, that the salamander lives in fire and that
parrots are taught to speak by being beaten with an iron rod (for

308 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

they feel nothing else). Other experts were eager to affirm that cinni-
bar, well known to pharmacists, is formed from the blood of the
dragon and elephant, mingled in their mortal combat. The quintes-
sence of the elements, they would remark, is full of the virtues
celestial. Others were fully aware of the doubled or trebled dangers
resulting from the conjunction of the dragon's tail with the evil
planets.

Roger Bacon was perhaps the first European to point out —
following his Arabic teachers — that these and similar axioms were an
obstacle to progress.

... If I had my way I should burn all the books of Aristotle, for the
study of them can only lead to a loss of time, produce error, and
increase ignorance. . . .^

Some centuries were to pass before Roger Bacon's advice was even
approximately followed. But it can be asserted with some confidence
that progress began when the scientists ceased to look at books and
began to look at things. Their first task, and the start of all that was
to follow, was to make a bonfire of all that had been written. Once
they had done that, scrapped all they knew and admitted their
complete ignorance, they were able to go straight ahead, assembling
facts and checking them by experiment. Facts henceforth were to
come first and eternal principles were to come (if at all) long after-
wards.

In the field of politics we have not yet reached the point at which
scientific progress began. We are still (literally) at the stage of reading
Aristotle. What is worse, we are still telling each other the eternal
principles of political theory. One theorist will say 'The history of all
known society . . . has been the history of class struggles'. Another
will reply as firmly that representative government is 'the ideal type
of the most perfect polity'. A third will cry that the general will is
always right, and a fourth will assert that the dictatorship of the
proletariat is bound to come. A fifth will intone his conviction that
all men are born equal, only to be shouted down by a sixth who will
have it that men are everywhere in chains. Government, we are
assured by a seventh, is instituted to secure for men their right to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. At all times, shouts the eighth,
the principles of democracy have brought people to ruin. The place
of the hero, growls the ninth, is with the stars of heaven. As soon as
the people are brought to silence, concludes the tenth (hopefully)
their voice is most distinctly heard. In the course of this book we have
had occasions to notice a score of these eternal principles, founded
for the most part on nothing. They are valuable to the historian as

> See The Legacy of the Middle Ages. Ed. C. G. Cramp and E. F. Jacob. Oxford,
1932. p. 270.

EPILOGUE 309

illustrations of popular or unpopular emotion. They may be valuable
to the politician as a fund of slogans upon which to draw in a time of
mental blackout. To the constructive political thinker they are mere
claptrap; rubbish to be removed from the site before the building
can begin. They are all, and without exception, drivel.

If the first stage in scientific thought (the stage we have not even
reached) is to rid ourselves of all the eternal verities, the second stage
is to learn how to progress step by step, and only one step at a time.
The reader who has restrained his impatience until now may feel
tempted to repeat his question. 'Well, at the end of it all, what form
of rule is best?' To that the student of politics must reply 'Howshould
I know? My researches have scarcely begun. Nor do I understand
your question — what do you mean by "best"; and "best", anyway,
for whom?' To try to answer that sort of question is to assume that
we are somewhere near the top of the ladder, whereas we are scarcely
on the bottom rung. Your true scientist is content with one step at a
time. He does not claim to produce a medicine which will cure every
known disease. He tries instead to isolate and identify a single
bacillus which may (or may not) be associated, in a majority of cases,
with the symptoms of one particular illness. Or he may be intent on
investigating a problem of fatigue in a certain metal when used in a
certain way. In just the same manner a student of politics will try to
establish some facts before proclaiming his discovery of universally
applicable rules of nature. Of the facts needed scarcely a fraction have
been ascertained. And if past experience is any guide, the facts are
needed before the theory, if only to prevent the theory from distorting
the facts.

What facts do we need? We need first to assemble and collate the
political experience embodied in history. This experience includes the
relative success of different forms of rule among different peoples,
on different continents, in different circumstances and in different
centuries. It will be obvious, in collecting this information, that
the problems of ruling China and the problems of ruling Cocos
Keeling Island are not identical. It will also be obvious that
many questions can never be answered. Jeremy Bentham judged
governments by his yardstick of the greatest happiness of the
greatest number. Were we to do the same, we should have no means
of discovering whether people of past centuries were happy or not.
Were the Egyptians happy under Rameses II? Were the Chinese
happy under Wu Ti? We cannot tell and will waste our time if we
seek to discover. If we cannot measure happiness among people still
living; still less can we measure the happiness of people who lived
and died centuries ago. Governments of a remote period may be
judged a little on their material achievement and a little by the arts.

310 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Often, however, we know little more about them than their period
of survival. That fact, if known for certain, is seldom, however,
without significance. The virtue of stability is at least measurable,
which so many other criteria are not. Of governments more recent
we know far more and of those still in existence we know more
again — except, indeed, about their capacity for survival.

Next we need to know something about political theories of the
past. We have found that these theories are usually a more or less
faithful reflection of current practice. We have also found that the
theories are mostly, to a scientific thinker, unhelpful. Theories based
on Divine Right, Original Contract, the Rights of Man and Human
Equality are likely to seem invalid or meaningless. We must dismiss
at the outset the idea that a perfect form of rule can be discovered,
set up and maintained for ever. The whole concept is pre-Darwinian.
Nothing human is likely to be perfect, and if it were (here and to-day)
it would no longer be perfect a century hence nor perfect now in
another place. It is in that sense that Karl Marx is still ahead of some
other thinkers. He had at least an idea that things evolve. Nowadays,
while fully alive to the laws of change, we lack his Victorian certainty
that change is for the better. We are even familiar, as patrons of the
cinema, with the change that leads us back to the starting point. But
while we may cheerfully discard most of the old theories, we might do
well to trace among them the growth of one important idea; the idea
that government is to be judged by results. To the semi-theological
theorist who says that good government is of the people, by the
people and for the people there have always been a few, here and
there, ready to retort that good government is that which governs well.

Such a one was Benedict Spinoza (1634-1677) whose training
(significantly) had been not in theology but in optics. In his un-
finished political treatise^ he expresses no definite conclusion about
the forms of rule. He applies, instead, this test of excellence: 'that
dominion is the best where men pass their lives in unity and the laws
are kept unbroken'. That is the beginnings of a scientific approach,
and one worthy of a contemporary of Descartes. There is some faint
echo of this idea in the text of Hobbes' Leviathan (See p. 84 above).
Descartes, in his Discourse on Method pointed the way to a science of
experiment and deplored 'the speculative philosophy taught in the
schools'. In politics it is just such philosophy that is still being taught;
a teaching in which Spinoza detected the fallacy nearly three hundred
years ago. The truth seen by Spinoza had been at least glimpsed, as
we have noted, by Confucius, who applied to governments the test
of duration. It was seen again, and more clearly, by Rousseau. He

' Writings in political pliilosophy. Benedict de Spinoza. Ed. A. G. A. Balz. New York,
1937.

EPILOGUh 311

refused to decide upon the relative merits of the different forms of
rule. He maintained, however, that one can decide, as a question of
fact, whether a given people is well or badly governed; a question
never settled 'because every one wishes to decide it in his own way'.
Let us repeat what he says once more:

. . . What is the object of political association? it is the preservation
and prosperity of its members. And what is the surest sign that they
are preserved and prosperous? It is their number and population. Do
not, then, go and seek elsewhere for this sign so much discussed. All
other things b^ing equal, the government under which, without
external aids, without naturalization, and without colonies, the
citizens increase and multiply most, is infallibly the best. That under
which a people diminishes and decays is the worst. Statisticians, it is
now your business; reckon, measure, compare.^

These words deserve to be remembered when the Social Contract
has ceased to be read. Among the pages of nonsense that have passed
so far as political philosophy we can discern, here and there, the first
faint glimmerings of scientific thought.

All this runs counter to the main current of British and American
sentiment. To many of these the test of good government is not con-
cerned with unity or duration, nor with the laws being kept nor with
the increase of population but simply with the question of what is or
is not democratic. There have thus in the past been patriots who have
cried 'My country, right or wrong!' There have been authors eager to
proclaim that the will of the people is sacred. It is not, they say, the
duty of government to make the wisest decision; government must
do what the people wish, if it be urged that the majority may be
wrong, they reply that it is through making mistakes that people
learn. It may be doubted, however, for two reasons, whether this
point of view is any longer tenable, in the first place we have seen that
the will of the people in the modern world is the synthetic result of
mass-suggestion; created by schools, press, films and radio, in the
second place, there are some suicidal mistakes that can only be made
once. A people cannot, save through ignorance, will their own
destruction by famine, disease or war. There can be nothing particu-
larly sacred about ignorance. And yet it is easy for intelligent and
energetic people to destroy the fertility of the soil upon which they
live. It has been done repeatedly. It is easy for a people to oppose, on
religious grounds, the sanitary measures which alone can save them
from the most fatal epidemics, it is happening daily. It is easy for a
people to neglect their armed forces, quarrel with every possible ally
and declare war upon a stronger power, thereafter suflfering complete
disaster and obliteration. It may happen at any time. No such process

' Social Contract. J. J. Rousseau. Chap. IX. Book \\\.

312 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

can be justified, surely, by any statistics of how the majority voted at
recent elections. We know, without any such research, that they can-
not have wanted what actually happened to them. The final test is
that of survival. The path which leads to destruction may be demo-
cratic but it cannot, in any useful sense, be right.

Having learnt something of history and something of past political
theory, the students of politics must next turn for their facts to the
allied fields of knowledge. We must learn from the anthropologist
that human beings have some deep instincts which we cannot ignore.
We must learn from the psychologist that man is less rational than
some thinkers have chosen to assume. Democracy must be studied in
terms of crowd-psychology, dictatorship in terms of megalomania.
We must learn from the expert in social medicine, who may
tell us at what age the human being reaches his peak of efficiency
and at what age he should retire. We must learn from the
social investigator the extent to which ability is inherited and
the extent to which it is acquired. What other qualities are
heritable, and how? From what sort of background does genius
usually derive? We must learn from experts in mass observation, who
can tell us what public opinion really means. We must learn from
advertising agents, who know the extent to which people can be
influenced and by what means and at what cost. We must learn from
physiologists, who will tell us in what ways the decisions of a com-
mittee may be affected by such factors as the hour, the temperature
and the ventilation. We must learn from physicians who have studied
the whole question of human fatigue. We must learn from a score of
specialists before we venture to attempt the solution of a single minor
problem. By the standards of modern scientific method the amount of
work devoted by Tom Paine to the whole field of politics would not
suflfice to decide the optimum number for a standing committee's
membership.

Our next source of information concerns the states existing at the
present day. We must study their vital statistics; the increase of
population, the size of family, the tendency to emigrate, the tendency
to commit suicide. We must collect and study all data relating to
health; the statistics of height, weight, sickness and insanity. We
must assemble the results of intelligence tests. We must discover the
number of road accidents in proportion to the number of vehicles.
Then we shall need facts and figures about crime, hooliganism and
juvenile delinquency. When all that information has been collected,
we can begin to approach the more difficult problems. First of these
might be the question of the economy of effort. How many public
servants are employed to administer a certain city at a given period:
how many clerks, how many police, how many firemen, how many

EPILOGUE 313

dustmen — all representing what total of expenditure? We must then
measure the time it takes, under a certain regime, to arrest and execute
a murderer; to pass an Act of the Legislature; to finish a Public
Inquiry; to pass the plans for a building; to announce the results of
an election; and to receive an intelligent reply from a government
department on any subject. The next stage might be to estimate the
public spirit shown by those living under the given regime. How many
of them do ambulance work, how many serve as auxiliary police,
how many belong to charitable organisations? We might go on to
inquire into standards of punctuality as affecting railways, aircraft,
'buses and public meetings. These are only a few of the headings
under which we might group all the factors which together represent
efficiency.

But efficiency, the reader may object, is not all. That is true
enough. The social scientist must move, however, step by step. To
measure the efficiency of different states does not show us which
political system is best. The results are merely a few facts to be con-
sidered alongside many other facts still to be ascertained. Nor would
the conclusions reached necessarily concern the exact form of rule.
It might well prove more possible to discover, in the first instance,
what size of state is to be preferred; or, rather, perhaps, what size of
state tends to produce the highest level of efficiency. It would seem
probable that an optimum could be found and even a rough idea
gained of the decline in efficiency observable after population exceeds
a certain total.

The danger, of course, in this sort of measurement is that it applies
only to what is easily measurable. One may picture (one may even
know) a well-proportioned community of healthy and contented
people, clean, hygienic, sensible and prosperous (if possibly a trifle
smug), producing nothing except another generation of similar
people, equally contented, healthy, clean and prosperous (and per-
haps a shade more smug than their parents). This picture of pointless
repetition should compel us, from the start, to pursue other lines of
investigation. In what sort of state and in what circumstances have
people produced the noblest achievements in art,, architecture,
sculpture, literature and music? Which peoples have been most
appreciative of the arts? Among what sort of peoples do we find the
greatest scientists, explorers, physicians, inventors and mountain-
climbers? We might discover that disorderly, criminal and diseased
people produce great works of art, and that healthy, smug, law-
abiding people produce nothing. We are not compelled, however, to
decide which is preferable until we know that the contrast exists.
Healthy children and good orchestral music may, after all, prove
compatible.

314 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Even when all the facts from past history and present experience
have been assembled and compared, the political scientist can base
upon them only the most tentative conclusions. For theories, even
when based upon facts, have still to be tested by experiment. In
countries organised on federal lines nothing could be simpler than
to nationalise the health service in one State or District and measure
the results (in health and cost) in comparison with the States still
unreformed. Would mines produce more if co-operatively owned by
the miners? The fact can be ascertained only by experiment. Ought
there to be secret voting in the legislature? Should half the members
of the Cabinet be women? Ought we to compel ministers to retire at
the age of fifty — or eighty? These are not subjects for discussion but
for experiment and observation.

The difficulty in solving these problems by the scientific method is
that people in general, and politicians in particular, are little influ-
enced by scientific thought. They demand, instead, religion, inspira-
tion, poetry, clamour, strife and hatred. People who want colour,
drama, action and conflict will never be satisfied with the cold facts
of dispassionate investigation. And this suggests the need for research
in another direction — the study of how to satisfy the political de-
mands of ordinary people while simultaneously providing for their
actual needs. There are, beyond question, people well qualified to
investigate such problems as these. It may, however, be doubted
whether any western democracy is so constituted as to be capable
either of experiment or of self-reform. For progress in the science or
art of politics we should look perhaps, first and foremost, to India;
and eventually to China. It is hardly probable that the subtle brains
of China will for very long be satisfied with the crude doctrines of
Karl Marx. In any case, a reaction is due against the present tendency
to make all political dispute a matter of economics; and people may
yet turn with relief to a programme of purely political reform.
Mounting and obvious dangers — especially of population increase
and famine — not to mention war — may compel peoples to resort to
scientific method in the end.

When, if ever, research leads to definite conclusions; when, if ever.
States prove sufficiently enlightened to accept advice based on patient
investigation rather than on crude emotion and selfish interest,
mankind may break away from the treadmill which seems to lead
from kingship to democracy, from democracy to kingship. There
would seem to be no fundamental reason why there should not be as
fresh a departure in politics as there has been in physics — provided
always that we can take the first essential step of discarding all that
we think we know. That step, if taken in Russia, would mean
relegating the works of Karl Marx to the history section of the

EPILOGUE 315

library. It would mean discarding the belief that communism has any
special sanctity. It would imply that communist theocracy should be
judged by results not by the criteria contained in holy writ. The same
step, if taken in the United States, would mean relegating the works
of Jefferson to the history section of the library. It would mean dis-
carding the belief that democracy has any special sanctity. It would
imply that universal suffrage should be judged by results not by the
criteria contained in holy writ. It cannot be sufficiently emphasised
that a research hampered from the outset by unproved assumptions
can lead nowhere. The starting point of any real investigation is not
the assertion of a passionate (if ill-defined) belief but the frank
admission of ignorance coupled with a genuine desire to find out.

This emphatic warning is more especially needed among the be-
lievers in democracy, who are less conscious than the communists
of all that they have tended to assume. Theirs is not normally, for
one thing, the religion of the single sacred volume. They are more
inclined to base their arguments on a vague knowledge of history.
'Monarchy and Aristocracy have failed', they say, 'it remains to try
Democracy'. The more enlightened will then agree to discuss the ways
and means. But the unproved assumption is still there. For in assert-
ing that Monarchy and Oligarchy have failed they have omitted to
explain in what the alleged failure consists. What have these forms of
rule failed to accomplish? They have failed (we are told) but in
what ? When that failure comes to be analysed we find ourselves driven
to the further conclusion that Democracy has also failed. Once that
is admitted, we can discuss the merits and defects of each system.
Without that admission, the discussion will lead nowhere.

In any fair discussion of political theory and practice it will be
absurd to deny that there is any merit in monarchy or oligarchy.
There are manifest advantages in both, quite comparable with the
advantages of democracy. Arithmetical arguments for democracy
must be balanced against all the biological objections to it. improve-
ments in the speed of horses have been brought about by careful
breeding, by the early training of a few thus bred and by the sub-
sequent care of those few. Many notable men and women have also
been the result of careful breeding, of early training and subsequent
guidance. The care which can be given to a few would be physically
impossible for the many (whether men or horses). One might add
that the promotion of someone to a position of responsibility at the
age of twenty has the possible merit of producing, later on, a man
aged thirty-five with fifteen years' experience; a person conceivably
more useful than another aged sixty with only ten years' experience.
This is no final argument for monarchy or aristocracy but it is the sort
of argument which must at least be considered.

316 THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

It would be absurd to predict now what the result would be of a
vast project of research which has scarcely begun. One might, how-
ever, be excused for making a guess at what it will not produce. If
the analogy of the physical sciences can be taken as a guide, we should
not expect the result of this investigation to be either universal or
final. The problems of administering areas of different size, shape,
population and character are too diverse (one would imagine) to
admit of the same answer being applicable to all. Nor should one
expect to find an answer which would remain valid for more than
twenty years. The error of the Utopians has been to imagine a final
solution to a problem of which the factors are almost bound to
change. The conclusions reached in the biological sciences (to which
politics would seem most nearly comparable) seldom have any such
petrified permanence. Not only do the facts change but other facts
are brought to light by further study. On the one hand, a further and
rapid change in the expectation of human life might affect all our
conclusions concerning the age at which an officer of high rank should
retire. On the other hand, a new treatise by a brilliant psychologist
might show that our previous beliefs on that subject had, in any case,
been completely wrong. When political science takes its place among
the other sciences its progress should presumably resemble theirs.

Wrote Thomas Hobbes on this subject: —

The skill of making and maintaining Commonwealths, consisteth
in certain Rules, as doth Arithmetique and Geometry; not (as Tennis-
play) on Practise onely: which Rules, neither poor men have the
leisure, nor men that have had the leisure, have hitherto had the
curiosity, or the method to find out.^

Hobbes was enough of a scientist to be able to indicate the two
essentials to progress: curiosity and method. We may hardly suppose
that the results of further research will reveal rules as precise as those
of arithmetique or geometry. We may no longer believe that the
rules, when found, will be as immutable as those mathematical rules
in which Hobbes believed. But we may still be assured that the
principles we seek, which we know to be neither universal nor eternal,
will never be discovered except by scientific means. When found, our
rules will have only a restricted validity. But without curiosity,
without method, they will never be found at all.

' Hobbes. op. cit. p. 110.

INDEX

Abaidat, 42

Abbasids, 133

Abbott, F. F., Roman Political Institutions, 105

Abel, 24, 43

Abelard, Peter, 148

Aborigines, 10

Abraham, 43

Abu Bakr, Khalifa, 131

Abyssinia, Italian invasion of, 249

Action Fniticiiise, 243

Adam, 85, 112

Adams, John, President of U.S.A., 191, 208

Aditya, 64

Adolphus, Gustavus, 72

Adrian IV, Pope, 74

Advertising, technique of, 291

Africa: herdsmen of, 25; early Kings of,

34; Hadrian in, 125
Agathon, 173
Agriculturalists: first, 21 ; earliest in Egypt, 28,

38, 53; early Agriculturalists, 39, 40;

Biblical, 43; choosing rulers among, 49
Akbar, Mogul Emperor, 1 36; moral regulations

enforced by, 137
Alberdi, South American political thinker, 259
Alcibiades, 174
Alexander II, of Russia, 216
Alighieri, Dante, De Monorchia, 76, 77
Allah, God of Islam, 128
Allen, J. W., A History of Political Thought in

the Sixteenth Century, 82
Alps, as boundary of Roman Empire, 102
Altekar, A. S., State and Government in Ancient

India, 169
America: political thinking in. 7; books on

political thinking in, 8, 9, 11; Declaration

of Independence, 18; early political societies,

24; political ideas current in, 117; Puritan

influence in, 166
Amorites, 46

Amphipolis, Athenian defeat at 178
Analects, 56
Anarchists, 242
Anarchy, defined, 12
Andamanese, 20
Andes, Incas in, 37
Anglo-Saxon Folk Moot, 168
Animism, defined, as basic instinct, 18
Ankole, of Uganda, 24, 34
Antef, of Thebes, 241
Antioch, 93
Aquinas, St. Thomas, Selected Political

Vi^rilings, 75, 76
Arab intellectual achievements, 134
Arabia: early civilization of, 14; early peoples

of, 39, 42; early wars of, 46; horses of, 48,

49, 93, 95
Archon, Athenian office of, 171
Areopogus, Council of, 171

Argentine, British investment in the, 257

Aristocracy: definition of, 12; early, in India
and Malaya, 61 ; John Bodin on theory of,
83; relation to feudalism, 101; defined, 102;
power of, 102; problems of, 103; at Rome,
103-106; Chinese, 106; English, 107-108,
109-119, 170, 224; Venetian, III; John
Locke on, 112, 113; Hooker on, 113; Burke
on, 119, 120; and theocracy, 121; Greek, 172

Aristotle. 7; historian of political thought, 7;
Politics, 40, 45; pastoral people described by,
45; and St. Thomas Aquinas, 75; and
Filmer, 86; on sequence in forms of rule,
111-113; views on democracy, 180

Arnold, Sir Thomas: The Legacy of Islam, 130;
The Caliphate, 303

Ascalon, 93

Asia: early days of, 25; early herdsmen of, 39,
41 ; early warriors of, 46

Asoka, Indian Emperor, 122, 123, 124

Assyria: war chariots of, 46; army of, 47

Asvaghosa, early Indian thinker, 19

Athava Veda, 64

Athenian League, 173-175

Athenians, 13

Athens: ancient, 10, 39; history of, 162, 171;
democratic constitution of, 172 et seq.

Altai, 46

Attica, 102

Attlee, Mr. Clement, 248, 249

Augsburg, 97

Augustin Trionfo, 76

.Augustus, Roman Emperor, 34, 77, 124

Aurangzib, Moghul Emperor, fanatical views
of, 137-138

Aurelian, Emperor, 124

Australia, 10, 21

Austria, 68, 100

Autocracy, in Czarist Russia, 156

Avanti, newspaper, edited by Mussolini, 229

Avignon, 76

Babur, Moghul Emperor, official title of, 135

Babylon: early civilization of, 14; early legal
codes of, 36; first horses of, 41, 47; early
wars in, 45, 47; chariots of, 46, 47

Bacon, Roger, views expressed by, 308

Bahima, African pastoralists, 24

Bairu, African agriculturalists, 24

Bali, 30

Bantu Kavirondo, political system of, 24

Barker, Sir Ernest, Greek Political Theory, 169

Barrett, W. P., The Trial of Jeanne d'Arc, 149

Basu, P., Indo-Aryan Policy, 33

Baynes, N. H. and H. (ed.), Byzantium, an
Introduction to East Roman Civilization, I 28

Bayreuth, 281

317

318

INDEX

Beauvais, Bishop of, 149

Bechstein, Frau, 281

Bedouins: tribes among, 42; of the Euphrates,

48; Ruala, customs of, 49
Beethoven, admired by Mussolini, 271
Bellarmine, Cardinal, 85
Belloc, Hilaire views of, 232 et seq., 238, 278;

Monarchy, A Study of Louis XIV, 72
Beloff, Max (eJ.), The Federalist, 200
Bemba, African tribe, 24
Benares, 121

Benes, Eduard, Democracy Today and To-
morrow, 262

Beni Prasad, Theory of Government in Ancient
India, 19, 20, 32, 59, 61, 64, 65, 67, 96

Benjamites (Old Testament), 42

Bentham, Jeremy, 7, 210; opinion of socialism
212; influence of, 224

Bernier, Frangois, his observations on the
economic state of Moghul India, 139

Bertrand, Louis, Louis XIV, 70

Beveridge, H., The Akharnama of Abu-l-Faal,
135

Bismarck, Prince, 228

Blackstock, P. W., The Russian Menace to.
Europe, 159

Blanshard, Paul, Communism, Democracy and
Catholic Power, 163 et seq.

Boas, Franz, General Anthropology, 21, 24, 25

Bodin, Jean, .Six Books of the Republic, 82, 83

Bolivar, Simon. 251 et seq.

Bolivia, revolts in, 256

Bologna, disorders at, 265

Bonaparte. Napoleon, 240, 253

Bonapartism, 298

Boniface VIII, Pope, 76

Border Ballads. 98

Borneo, aborigines of, 10

Bosphorus, 125; Emperor Constantine's capital
on, 125

Boswell, James, 88

Bourgeoisie, 154

Bowie, John, Western Political Thought, 36,
128, 143

Box, P. H., Three Master Builders, 265

Brahmans: position of, 33, 48, 58, 61, 63, 64,
121-122; in relation to king, 33, 63; in re-
lation to institution of caste, 58-59; their
rule of life. 60

Brandenburg, house of, 89

Briand, French Prime Minister, 228

Brihatparasara, 59

Brissot, views on U.S.A., 207

Britain, 48

British, and caste system in India, 59

British aristocracy, 170

British democracy, Gandhi's opinion of, 194

British Empire, 245

Bryant. Sir Arthur. English Saga. 1840-1940, 226

Bryce, James (Viscount), Modern Democracies,
261-262

Buddhism: in China, 57, 214; democratic
customs connected with, 96; temples dedi-
cated to, 98; theocracy of, 121; Christian
doctrines compared with, 125; political
devices associated with, 189

Buhaddharma Purana, 20

Bullock, Alan, Hitler, a Study in Tyranny, 294
et seq.

Burckhardt, Jacob, The Age of Constantine the

Great, 124
Bureaucracy, definition of, 12
Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution

in France, 100; views of, 119
Burma, Buddhism in, 122
Burnham, James, The Managerial Revolution,

289
Burns, John, 227
Bushmen, 20
Byzantium: civilization of, 14; theocracy of,

124; etiquette of, 128; religion of, 129;

defence of, 130

Cain, 24, 43

Calderon, F. G., Latin .America: its rise and
progress, 256

Calendar: in early agricultural life, 29; histori-
cal importance of, 30

Calicut, 35

Caliphate, 132

Calvin, John, 82; career of, 82; regime at
Geneva, 139

Calvinist discipline, 140

Cambodia, 34

Cambridge, University of, 80

Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. VI, 76, 97

Canaan, 43

Capitalist society, analysed by Marx, 154

Caporetto, battle of, 263

Carlyle, Thomas, 272 et seq. ; Frederick the
Great, 111, 274; French Revolution, 274;
Heroes and Hero-Worship, 274; Sartor
Resartus, 275 ; Past and Present, 111

Carter, E. W., The American Government, 199

Cary, M., Geographic Background of Greek
and Roman History, 102

Caste, 58, 59: in India, 58; hereditary groups,
division into, 59; warrior, 61, 64; in France,
71; amongst Brahmans, 121

Catherine II of Russia, 86

Catiline, conspiracy of, 185

Cato, 103

Caucasus, 46

Caudillos, »he, 251

Celebes, islands of, 30

Celibacy, in Christian Church, 127

Ceylon, Buddhism in, 122

Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, Foundations
of the Nineteenth Century, 279

Chandragupta, Emperor, 61, 66, 136

Chang Yung, 56

Chapman, Dom John, Saint Benedict and the
Si.xth Century, 96

Charlemagne, Emperor, 76. 148

Charles, King of Naples, 86

Charles II, of England. 80, 83, 84, 85, 112

Charles III, of Spain, 86

Chastellux, on U.S.A., 208

Cherry, Professor, 28

Chesterton, G. K., 157, 196

Chieftains, 24, 25. 26, 29; in early Africa. 24,
25; amongst primitive groups, 26; strength-
ened by agricultural development, 29;
power of, 29, 30, 31. 53, 54, 57, 58

Ch'ien Tuang Sheng, Government and Politics
of China, 56, 57, 301

INDEX

319

Childe, Gordon, Social Evolution, 38

China: political theory in, 8; peoples of, 8, 19,
31, 33, 51, 56, 60, 106; ancient, 9; Chow
Ch'in and Sui dynasties, 14, 92; legend of
Golden Age in, 19, 20; Kingship in, 31;
funeral customs of, 33; war chariots of, 46;
stirrup invented in, 48; writing in, 51; Han
Dynasty, 102; Tsin Dynasty, 125; problem
of ruling, 166; Buddhism in, 189

Ch'ing Dynasty, 299

Chivalry, 49; in medieval Europe, 92; and
political interest in Middle Ages, 93; politi-
cal implications of, 94, 95; Burke on value
of, 100

Christ, Jesus, lack of interest in politics, 125

Christian religion: theology of, 19, 40, 124;
importance of Papacy in, 76; Monasticism
and, 96; ideals and ethics of, 126, 127;
egalitarian doctrines of, 192

Chronicles of Froissart, 98

Chu Yiianchang, Emperor, 298

Church of England, 210

Churchill, Sir Winston, 7, 162, 247, 248; The
Second World War, 247, 248

Cicero, 103, 111, 119

City, developinent of the, 38, 50, 85

City of God, The (St. Augustine), 143

City states: in ancient world, 96, 97; Rome,
102; Venetian and Dutch, 111

Civil Service, Athenian, 174

Clan, 39, 40,41, 43, 58

Clark, G. N., The Seventeenth Century, 80

Claudius, Emperor, Imperial bureaucracy of,
124

Cleisthenes, 168, 172

Cleon, Athenian politician, 175, 176

Clodius, Roman politician, 182

Cobban, Dr. Alfred, Dictatorship, Its History
and Theory, 269-270

Colbert, 71

Colline Gate, massacre at, 184

Colombia, political problems of, 254

Commonwealth: term used by Hobbes, 83-84;
example of, in Poland, 86; in England, 86

Communism, 85; Filmer on, 85; as religion,
151; triumph of, in Russia, 158

Communist Manifesto (1847-48), 152

Communist Party, Russian, 160

Confucian doctrines, 300, 301, 310

Confucian ethics, 299

Confucius, 98, 121

Congo, the, 34

Conrad, Joseph, views of, 216

Constantine, Emperor, 125, 128

Constantinople, eastern Empire centred upon,
128

Constitution: of U.S.S.R., 159; of U.S.A.,
200

Constitutions of Europe in I9th century, 215-
216

Cook, Captain James, description of South
Sea Islanders, 200

Coon, Carleton S., A Reader in General Anthro-
pology, 42

Corn Laws, 210

Crane, Walter, 227

Creoles of South America, 252

Croce, Benedetto, views of, 272; My Philo-
sophy, 284

Cromwell, Oliver, Carlyle's admiration for, 273

Crusaders, 48

Cultivation: of the soil 21; contrast with
pastoral societies, 24, 39, 40, 41 ; millet and
barley, conditions suitable for, 28; fences
necessary for, 29; peaceful character of
peoples practising, 43, 44

Cyrene, party strife at, 179

Czechoslovakia, sacrifice of, 248, 249

Dalai Lama, 122

Dante Alighieri, 7, 148; De Monorchia, 76

Darien, 37

Darwin, Charles: Journal of Researches. 20;
Origin of Species, 153

Daryll Forde, C, Habitat, Economy and
Society, a Geographical Introduction to
Ethnology, 40, 44

Das Kapital (Karl Marx), 151

David (Old Testament), 36, 47, 50

Davies, E. T., The Political Ideas of Richard
Hooker, 113

Death Duties, effect of, 171

De Burgh, W. C, Legacy of the Ancient
World, 125

Declaration of Independence, American, 199
Declaration of the Rights of Man, 201, 203

De Gaulle, General, 297

Delhi, republics near, 169

Delos, treasury at, 173

Demetrius of Phalerum, 178

Democracy: defined, 12; sovereignty in, 82;
imperfections of, 85; Voltaire on, 87; in
Rome, 103, 104; Dutch inclination towards,
III; peace, safety and public good secured
through, 114; Rousseau's views on, 204;
decay of, 262; as forerunner of Marxism,
263; Nietzche's opinion of, 277

Despotism, defined, 12, 115

Dharma, Emperor Asoka's proclamation of,
123

Dhawan, Gopinath, The Political Philosophy
of Mahal ma Gandhi, 193, 195, 241

Dialectical Materialism, 153

Dialectics, Marxist, 153

Diaz, dictator of Mexico, 256

Dickinson, John {ed.). The Statesman's Book
of John of Salisbury, 74, 75

Dictatorship: defined, 12; experiment in,
ended in military, 112; nature of, 251;
20th century tendency towards, 260; psy-
chology of, 292

Diggers, extremist party, 192

Dikshitar, Ramachandra V. R., Hindu Admin-
istrative Institutions, 60, 63, 66

Dilts, M. M., The Pageant of Japanese History,
31, 58

Diplomacy, democratic, weakness of, 246

Disarmament, 248

Disraeli, Benjamin, 214, 245, 250; policy of,
225; biography of, 226

Distributism, 233

Dnieper, River, 46

Doctrine of names, 300

Dolfuss, Austrian politician, 270

Dominican Republic, 256

Domitian, first living Emperor called Deus, I 24

320

INDEX

Draco, 169

Du Bois, Pierre, De Recuperalione Terre
Sancte, 76

Dubs, H. H., Hsuntze, the Moulder of Confu-
cianism, 56, 299

Duncan, R. (ed.). Selected Writings of Mahat-
ma Gandhi, 196

Dunning, W. A., A History of Political Theories
Ancient and Medieval, 111

Duplessis-Mornay, adviser to Henry of
Navarre, 99

Durham, Bishop of, 96

Dutt, R. Palme, Fascism and Social Revolution,
264, 267

East India Company, 56, 210

Ecclesia, Athenian, 172, 173

Economic interpretation of history, 155

Ecuador, dictators of, 256

Edwards, S. M., Mughal Rule in India, 136

Egypt: civilization of, 14; origin of culture in,
28; Sun God cult in, 30, 31 ; funeral rites, 33;
king's supernatural powers, 34, 36, 69;
early customs of, 37; kingdom of, 38;
horse-drawn chariots in, 46, 47; early
writing of, 51; pattern of monarchy in, 53,
55, 63, 68, 102; Roman debt to, 124

Election, parliamentary (1906), 227

Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 80, 107, 108

Elliot Smith, G.: Human History, 20, 30;
Early Man, his Origin, Development and
Culture, 28

Emile (J. J. Rousseau), 204

Emperor: of Japan, 34; of Incas, 37; Roman,
53; in China, 55, 56, 57, 58; Papal views on,
76; Marsiglio's views on, 77; deification of,
124; Hadrian as, 125; Constantine as, 125

Empire, 73, 96, 98; Roman. 124

Engelmann, G., Political Philosophy from
Plato to Jeremy Bent ham, 211

Engels, Friedrich, 152, 273

England: law of, 19, 37; succession of kings
in, 35; Civil Service in, 56; nationalism in,
68; national monarchy in, 69, 74, 77, 92,
99, 112; divine right in, 79, 86; George 111,
king of, 87; Samuel Johnson and monarchy
of, 96; aristocracy in, 106, 107, 108, 109,
110, 111, 117; principle of toleration in, 118;
Edmund Burke and constitution of, 118

English Historical Review, 155

Enock, C. R., Peru, 256

Ec/uality. (R. H. Tawney), 230

Equality, in Islam, 130-131

Equality before God, doctrine of, 190

Erasmus, 79, 80

Ethiopia, 34

Eupatridae, Athenian Council of, 171

Euphrates, River, 48

Euripides, 173

Europe: political thinking in, 7; chivalry in,
48, 92, 93; national monarchies of, 68, 74;
feudalism in, 97; aristocracy of, 101, 107.
109, 111

Evans, Ivor H. N., Negritos of Malaya, 21,
22

Evans-Pritchard, E. E., The Sanusi of Cyre-
naica, 42

Evans-Pritchard, E. E., and M. Fortes,

African Political Systems, 10, 17, 24, 25,

34, 38, 40
Everest, Mount, 95
Everybody's Political What's What (G. B.

Shaw), 231
Examinations, Chinese system of, 55
Executive, power of, 114, 115, 117; Locke's

views on the, 116

Fabian Society, 227

Fascism, as regarded by G. B. Shaw, 279

Fascists, Italian, 264, 265

Federalist, The {ed. Max Beloff), 200

Feudalism: defined, 12; feudal state of China,
92; chivalry as an aspect of, 95; structure
of, 96; European, 97; theories of, 98-99,
100-101; precursor to aristocracy, 117

Fichte, theories of, 272

Figgis, J. N., The Divine Right of Kings, 80

Filmer, Sir Robert: Patriarcha and other
Political works, 84, 85, 112, 117; Popular
Government more bloody than a Tyranny, 86;
The Anarchy of a limited or mixed Monarchy,
86

Finer, H., The Future of Government, 243

First International, 156

First World War, diplomatic prelude to, 244

Fischer, Eric, The Passing of the European Age,
14

Flanders, 100

Fleure, H. J., and Harold Peake, Priests and
Kings, 31, 36; The Steppe and the Sown, 241

Food-gatherers, 23, 29

Ford, G. S., Dictatorship in the Modern World,
270

Forde, Daryll C, Habitat, Economy and So-
ciety, a Geographical Introduction to Ethno-
logy, 40, 44

Foreign policy: democratic. 244; British, 245

Fortes, M., and E. E. Evans-Pritchard,
African Political Systems. 10, 17. 24. 25. 34,
38, 40

Forty Ronin, Legend of. 98

Fragmenlon Government. A. (Jeremy Bentham).
210

France: nationalism in, 68, 72; Louis XIV of,
69, 72, 73; caste system in, 71 ; divine right
in, 79; Voltaire on, 87, 88; aristocracy of,
108, 109; monarchy of, 112; fall of (1940),
243

Francia, dictator of Paraguay, 258

Frank, T., An Economic History of Rome, 102

Frankfort, Henri, Kingship and the Gods, 31,
34, 35, 38

Frazer, Sir James, The Golden Bough. 23, 34

Frederick the Great of Prussia, 86, 89; Anti-
machiavel, 86; Second Political Testament
(1768), 86; First Political Testament (1752),
87

Freeman, Kathleen, Greek City Slates, 179

French Revolution, 107, 201, 209

Froissart, Chronicles of, 98

Fujiwara Clan, 58, 106

Fulbe, 24

Funck-Brentano, Franz, The Old Regime in
France, 69, 70

INDEX

321

Gaius Gracchus, Roman politician, 182

Gandhi, Mahatma: ideals of, 193; character
and career of, 194; views on industry, 196,
306, 307; views on politics, 197; pohtical
philosophy of, 240, 241, 242; divine inspira-
tion of, 285

Ganges, River, 58

Garden of Eden, 19

Garrett, H. L. O., Miii;hal Rule in India, 136

Gaudefroy-Demombynes, M., Muslim Insti-
tutions, 134

Gautama, the Buddha: life, death, and subse-
quent reputation of, 121-122; ideas as
preached by Emperor Asoka, 123, 124;
support given to by the Lichchhavis, 169;
divine inspiration of, 285

General Strike (1926), 228

Geneva: Calvin's arrival at, 82; Calvinist rule
at, 140

George III, of England, 86

Germany: nationalism in, 68; court orchestras
of, 98

Ghoshal, V., A History of Hindu Political
Theories, 33, 59, 65

Gibbon, Edward, The History of the Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1 28

Gierke, Legacy of the Middle Ages, 75

Giolitti, Italian politician, 264, 265

Glanville, S. R. K., The Legacy of Egypt, 36

Gluckman, Max, African Political Systems, 24,
25

Gobineau, racial views of, 279

Goebbels, Joseph, 294, 296

Goering, Herman, 296

Golden Age: Greek, 19; Chinese, 19, 20;
Indian, 19, 31; in relation to food-gathering
peoples, 21

Gomez, dictator of Venezuela, 256

Gooch, G. P.: Frederick the Great, the Ruler,
the Writer, the Man, 86, 89; Dictatorship in
Theory and Practice, 266

Goodwin, A., The European Nobility in the
Eighteenth Century, 71

Goodwin, A. J. H., Communication has been
Established, 46, 48

Gorgolini, P., The Fascist Movement in
Italian Life, 270

Gough, J. W., John Locke's Political Philo-
sophy, 1 1 1

Graeco-Roman civilization, 14

Greece: ancient, 7; civilization of, 14; Filmer
on monarchy in, 85

Greeks: as pioneers in political thought, 8, 12;
Golden Age of, 19; script used by, 52;
influence on Roman Republic, 124, 125

Greenidge, A. H. J., Roman Public Life, 105

Gregory the Great, 148

Grote, G., A History of Greece, 174 et seq.

Grotius, Hugo, 11 1

Habsburg Dynasty, 73

Hadrian, Emperor, 124; Perpetual Edict of, 125
Halifax, Lord, historian of political thought, 7
Hamilton, Alexander, The Federalist or the

New Constitution, 200
Hammurabi, legal code of, 36
Happiness, Bentham's definition of, 211
Hardie, James Keir, 227

Harem, political dangers of, 67

Harsha, 123

Harvest, ruined in England (1879), 226

Hasa, nomadic tribe, 42

Hattersley, A. F., A Short History of De-
mocracy, 216

Hattin, Horns of, 93

Hausmann, street planning by, 282

Havell, E. B., The History of Aryan Rule in
India, 124

Hawaii, Children of the Sun of, 30

Hayar, type of nomad, 41

Hayek, F. A., The Road to Serfdom, 268

Healey, John, The City of God, translated by,
168

Hearnshaw, F. J. C. : The Social and Political
Ideas of some great Thinkers of the I6th
and nth Centuries, 79, 82; Social and
Political Ideas of the Renaissance and Refor-
mation, 80; Social and Political Ideas of
some Representative Thinkers of the Age of
Reaction and Reconstruction 1815-65, 214

Hegel, philosophy of, 273

Hegira, the, 129

Heitland, W. E., The Roman Republic, 185

Heliopolis, origin of Sun God cult, 30

Hellenistic civilization, 14, 124

Henry of Navarre (Henri IV of France), 69, 99

Heraclitus, 121

Herdsmen: nomadic, 24; Sir Henry Maine on
societies of, 25; described, 39, 41

Heresy, Christian attitude towards, 127

Hero-worship, cult of, 274

Hill, G. B., Boswell's Life of Johnson, 88

Hill, H., The Roman Middle Class in the
Republican Period, 185

Himmler, Heinrich, 296

Hincman, of Rheims, 74

Hindoos, 102, 245

Hindostan, kingdom of, 134

Hinduism: Hindu Legend of the Golden Age,
19; superiority of Brahman caste, 59; belief
in after life, 60; system of educating future
rulers, 62; theory of Government, 66

History, study of, 155; Marxist interpretation
of, 153

Hitler, Adolf, 51; speech by, 94, 293; his im-
pressions in youth, 262; German post-war
situation described by, 267; career of, 268;
views on democracy, 268; works read by,
271; admiration for Wagner, 280, 281;
views on statesmen, 285; physical collapse
of, 295

Hobbes, Thomas, 7; Leviathan, 9, 20, 31, 83,
84, 310; quotations from the works of, 191,
316

Hogarth, D. G., (Ed.) Kinglake's Eothen, 45

Holland, 100

Holy Roman Empire, 68

Holy War, 133

Homer, Iliad, 48

Homo, L. P., Roman Political Institutions, 103,
125

Hooker, Richard, 112, 113, 199

Horse Guards, Carlyle's respect for, 276

Horsemen: nomadic, 25; interest in pedigrees,
42; superior mobility of, 44; development
of, 46; Pharaoh's use of, 47; Philistines'
use of, 47; Ruala Bedouins as typical, 49;

322

INDEX

Horsemen — continued.

advantages and outlook of, 50 ; armoured, 92 ;

Arab world of, 93; as a basis of aristocracy,

108
Horus, Ruler of Egypt, 36; lord of power, 47
Hoselity, B. F., The Russian Menace to Europe,

159
Hottentots, equality among, 20
Humayan, Moghul Emperor, official title of,

135
Hume, David, views on natural law, 212
Humphrey, Richard, Georges Sorel, Prophet

without Honor, 283
Humphreys, R. A., The Evolution of Modern

Latin America, 255
Hungary, 99

Hyksos (Shepherd Kings), 46
Hyndman, H. M., leader of Social Democratic

Federation, 227

Ibanez, Carlos, dictator of Chile, 257

Ibn Hasan, The Centra/ Structure of the Mughal
Empire, 1 34

Independent Labour Party, 227

India, duration of civilization of, 14; legend of
Golden Age known to, 19; ruled by Children
of the Sun, 30; priestly power separate from
Monarchy in, 31, 32; size of kingdoms, 38
war chariot, standard weapon, 46, 48, 49
jodhpurs worn in, 51; Civil Service of, 56
institution of caste in, 58; Brahman caste
of, 59; royal power in, 61-63; principles of
cabinet government in, 66; polygamy in, 67;
routine of kingship in, 68, 70; examples of
feudalism in, 92; Gautama's life in, 121;
new religion created by Gautama's followers
in, 122; ideas of common folk in, 124;
early democracy in, 168

Indonesia, 30; ruled by Children of the Sun,
30

Indus, valley of, 46; Kingdoms of, 58

Industry, concentration of, 156

Innis, H. A., Empire and Communications, 46

Innocent III, Pope, 76

Intef of Thebes, 241

International Law, definition of "State" for
purposes of. 111

Intolerance, instances of, 150

Ipuwer, Egyptian chronicler, 240

Isaiah, 121

Isakovsky, Mikhail, 164

Islam, theology of, 19; observances of, 130

Israel: Saul came from smallest tribe of, 42;
Pharaoh's pursuit of Israelites, 47

Italy, invaded by French, 78; Roman consti-
tution to govern, 124; growth of socialism
in, 263

Jalal-ud-din, Muslim King, 135

Jahangir, Emperor, 136

James I, King of England and Scotland, 79, 80;
views of, 83; logic of his teaching, 84; bound
by fundamental laws of his kingdom, 1 16

James II, King of England, 112
Japan, religious cult of, 31; Emperor of, 34;
religious and ceremonial duties of monarchy
in, 57; Imperial Court of, 71; affords back-
ground for chivalry, 92; Samurai in, 95;
Buddhist temples of, 98; literature of, 106;
Buddhism in, 122, 189

Jandun, John of, and Marsiglio of Padua,
Defensor Pads, 77

Jaures, French Socialist, 228; assassinated, 229

Java, Buddhism in, 122

Jay, John, 200

Jefferson, Thomas, 199

Jesus Christ, lack of interest in politics, 193

Jewish opposition to Christianity, 126-127

Jewish Tribes, legends of, 19; origins and
customs of, 32, 40, 41, 47; Isaiah, prophet
of, 121

Joan of Arc, trial of, 148

John XXII, Pope, 76, 77

John of Salisbury, Policraticui or The Stales-
man's Book, 74, 75

Johns, C. W. M., Babylonian and Assyrian
Laws and Contracts, 36

Johnson, Samuel, 88

JollifTe, J. E. A., The Constitutional History of
Medieval England, 98

Jonas of Orleans, 74

Jordan, 43

Joseph of Portugal, 86

Judge, David as, and lawgiver, 36; king of
pastoral and nomadic people as, 53

Judiciary, 114, 115, 116, 117

Julius Caesar, 34, 185; divine ancestry of, 186;
consulship of, 186; assassination of, 187

Justinian, Emperor, 95; institutes of, 125

Kaiinga, 123

Kamatari, Clan of, 58

Kamatavi, noble who reorganised Japan on
Chinese lines, 57

Kant, theories of, 272

Kautalya, 63, 67

Kedah, Chieftainship in, 23, 24

Kellogg Pact, 248

Kemal, Mustafa. 270

Kennedy, Pringle, A History of the Great
Moghuls, 136

Kern, F., Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages,
77

Kingship: defined. 12, 53, 54; magician's
authority as origin of, 23, 30; basis of
civilizations considered by ancient Near
East, 31; Jewish, 32; separation of priest-
hood from, in India, 33; impersonal image
of, 34; primary functions of, essentially
religious, 35; as basis of law and unity, 36;
marriage problems of, 37; amongst pastoral
peoples, 46; in battle, 47, 48, 49; effect of
war upon, 50, 51; in relation to caste, 58,
59; in India, 61, 62-67; in Europe, 68; in
France, 69-73; John of Salisbury as advo-
cate of, 74; medieval argument for, 75;
St. Thomas Aquinas's views on, 75, 76;
Dante's views on, 77; subordination of
Papacy to, 78; in relation to nationalism, 79;

INDEX

323

Kingship — continued.

Divine right of, 80, 81; justification of,
82; Sir Robert Filmer's justification of, 84,
85; Samuel Johnson defends, 88; Frederick
the Great's fears concerning, 89; in relation
to nobility, 92; welcomed after militant
feudalism, 98; and law, 99, 115; at time of
James II in England, 109; return to, after
military dictatorship in England, 112

Kirk, G. E., /I Short History of the Middle East,
134

Koran, 131

Kotwal (Moghul town prefect), duties of, 136

Kshatriyas (Indian warrior caste), 169

Kwang-Tze, follower of Lao-Tze, Golden Age
described by, 20

Kyoto, as capital of Japan, 58

Locke, John: Treatise of Government, 112; Of
Civil Government, 112, 113; An Essay con-
cerning Toleration, 118; Letter concerning
Toleration, 1 1 8

Longnon, J., A King's lessons in statecraft, 70

Lot (Old Testament), 43

Louis XIV: monarchy of, 68, 71-73; Memoirs
of, 69, 70

Louis XVI, 9

Lowell, A. Lawrence, Governments and Parties
in Continental Europe, 216

Lowie, R. H., The Origin of the State, 24, 39

Ludwig, Emil, Bolivar, the Life of an Idealist,
253

Luther, Martin, 79

Lyceum, scholars of, 179

Lycurgus of Sparta, 8, 111

Labour Party, British, foreign policy of, 247
Labour Movement, British, 227
Lacedaemonians, humiliation of the, 177
Laidler, H. W., Social-Economic Movements,

152, 160, 162
Lainey, Jesuit, 191

Laissez-faire, Bentham's defence of, 213
Lamartine, Aiphonse, influence of, 258-259
Landtman, G., Origin of the Inequality of the

Social Classes, 20
Lao-Tze, 20
Laski, Harold, 7; A Defence of Liberty against

Tyrants, 98, 99, 100; prophecy uttered by,

269
Lassalle, Ferdinand, 228, 273
Lastarria, Chilean political theorist, 258
Latham, Ronald, In Quest of Civilization, 45
Law: of Osiris in Egypt, 28; rule of, 36; of

feudal age, 98; of privileges, 99, 100; of

Rome, 103; of Nature, 113; of Government,

114; John Locke's views on, 115, 116, 117
Lawrence, T. E., The Seven Pillars of Wisdom,

126
Lawyers, Bentham on, 210
League of Nations Union, 249
Legislature, 114, 115, 116, 117
Lenin, deification of, 151, 162, 163
Levy, R., An Introduction to the Sociology of

Islam, 133
Lewis, Bernard, The Arabs in History, 129, 133
Lewis. W. H., The Splendid Century, 69
Lex frumentaria, Roman corn law, 182
Lex Julia, Roman law, 184
Lex Flantia Papiria, Roman lav^f, 184
Lhasa, 122
Liang Chi-Chao, History of Chinese Political

Thought, 299
Liberty, Mill's essay on, 217, 221
Libya, 46
Lichchhavis, Republican customs of the, 168,

169
Lin Mousheng, Men and Ideas, 299
Lips, Julius E., 21
Little Entente, 183

Liu Chi (of Pang), Emperor of China, 298
Livius Drusus, 183
Lloyd George: Chancellor of the Exchequer,

227; Prime Minister, 228
Local Government, G. B. Shaw's views on, 279

Mably, Gabriel, de, views on U.S.A., 206
Macdonald, A. J., Authority and Reason in the

Early Middle Ages, 74
Macdonald, Duncan B., Development of

Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Consti-
tutional Theory, 131 e/ seq.
Macedonia, rise of, 174
Machiavelli, Nicolo: The Prince, 1, 78;

read by Adolf Hiilet, 272
MacLeod, W. C, The Origin and History of

Politics, 37
MacNair, H. F. (,ed.), China, 56
Madison, James, 200
Magician: powers of, 22; influence of, 23, 26,

53, 74; duties of, 29
Maginot Line, 248
Magna Carta, 98
Mahabharata, the, 31
Maine, Sir Henry, Ancient Law, 25
Majid Khadduri, The Law of War and Peace

in Islam, 131
Majumdar, R. C, The Vedic Age, 48, 64
Malabar, 35
Malaya, 10, 21, 61, 122
Malayan Annua! Report (1890), 33
Malone, D., Jefferson and the Rights of Man,

199
Malthus, 213

Man and Superman (G. B. Shaw), 278
Managerial Revolution, 289
Mandate of heaven, doctrine of, 299
Manegold of Lautenbach, 76
Manetho, 46, 47

Mantra, council in ancient India, 64
Mantrin, Chief adviser in ancient India, 64
Marathon, Battle of, 177
Mariana, 16th century thinker, 191
Marie Antoinette, Burke laments plight of, 100
Marius, Roman General, 183
Marly, palace of Louis XIV, 70, 72
Marriage, royal, 37
Marsiglio of Padua, and John of Jandun,

Defensor Pads, 11
Marx, Eleanor, 227
Marx, Karl, Das Kapital, 151, 153; influenced

by Hegel, 273; as believer in evolution, 310;

how regarded in Russia and China, 314
Marxism, political aspect of, 156-157
Masson-Oursel, Paul, Ancient India and Indian

Civilisation, 59

324

INDEX

Materialism, rejected in bngland, 156

Matriarchy, 18

Maurice of Nassau, 72

Maurya, ancient Indian dynasty of, 61, 66,

122
McDougall, W., The Croup Mind, 289
McGovern, W. M., From Luther to Hitler,

272
Mecca, 129, 130
Medina, flight to, 129
Megasthenes, description of early Hindu

palaces, 67
Megiddo, battle of, 46, 47
Mein Kampf, (Adolf Hitler), 262, 272, 293
Melos, Athenian relations with, 176
Mencius (works of), 56

Mesopotamia: herdsmen of, 25; origin of
agriculture in, 28; the horses of, 41; war
chariot of, 46
Mexico: Aztec, 14; revolutions in, 256
Michell, H., The Economics of Ancient Greece,

172
Middle class, British, social aspirations of, 224
Miletus, party strife at, 179
Mill, John Stuart, 213 et seq.
Millerand, French Socialist, 228
Ming Tzu (Mencius), 56
Ming Dynasty, 55

Mill, James, historian of British India, 213
Minorities, danger to, 217
Mitylene, siege of, 175, 177
Mogul India, 134

Monarchy: nature of, 12, 23, 31, 32, 34, 53;
law of, 36: and marriage, 37, 38; function
of, in war, 50, 51; extent of, 54; in China,
57; in Japan, 58; in India, 58, 59, 61 et seq.;
in France, 68 el seq.; medieval theory of,
74 et seq.; St. Thomas Aquinas's views on,
75; Dante defends, 76, 77; Marsiglio of
Padua's views on, 77; Machiavelli dis-
cusses, 78; Tudor and Stuart theory con-
cerning, 78, 79-81; Jean Bodin discusses,
82-83; Thomas Hobbes defends, 83; in
enlightened form, 88, 89; feudal attempt
to limit, 98-101; modern evolution of, 106-
107; John Locke's views on, 112; deifica-
tion of, at Rome, 124 et seq.
Monasteries, Buddhist; procedure in, 169;

democracy in, 188
Monasticism: as an aspect of feudalism, 95;

and Rule of St. Benedict, 96
Montalvo, political theorist of Ecuador, 258
Montesquieu, 119; Esprit des Lois, 119
Moon Goddess, 23
Moore, D. L., The Vulgar Heart, 290
More, Sir Thomas, Utopia, 7, 79
Moreland, W. H., The Agrarian System of
Moslem India, 134; From Akhar to Aura-
ngzib, 139
Mornet, M. Daniel, 203
Morris, William, 157, 196, 227
Moses, 51
Moss, H. St. L. B., Byzamtium, an Introduction

to East Roman Civilization, 128
Mount Herman, 28
Muhammad, career of, 129 et seq.
Mukerjee, R., Democracies of the East, 168,

171
Muslim creed, 142

Muslim Law, 132, 303

Muslim ruler, duties of, 133

Mussolini, Benito; Prime Minister of Italy,
265; praised by Pope Pius XI, 266; opinion
of liberalism, 266; works read by, 271, 284;
Beethoven admired by, 271

Mustafa Kemal, dictator of Turkey, 270

Myth, theory of, 282

Nagas, Landtman comments upon equality
among, 20

Naka, Japanese Prince of Imperial Clan, 57

Nara, capital of Yamato (ancient Japan), 57;
monastic influences of, 58

National Insurance Act, British (1911), 234

National Socialism in Germany, 268 et seq.

Nationalism: and Monarchy, 53; growth in
Middle Ages of, 68; and Louis XIV, 72;
and Divine Right and Monarchy, 78, 79,
80, 81

Negritos, or Semang, 21, 22

Netherlands, 111; exception to rule of king-
ship in 17th century, 68

New England, puritans of, 166

New Teitament: depicts Jews as settled agri-
culturalists, 40; Christ choosing to be born
under Roman rule, 77

New Zealand, ruled by Children of the Sun, 30

News from Nowhere (William Morris), 227

Ngwato tribe, 24

Nicene Creed, approved by Council of the
Church, 128

Nicolson, Sir Harold, Curzon, the Last Phase,
246, 247

Nietzche, Friedrich: as original socialist
thinker, 272; influence of, 273; philosophy
of, 277

Nile, River, 28

Nippon (Japan), Yamato's name changed to,
57

Nirmal Kumar Bose, Studies in Candhism, 193

Nirvana, Gautama's conception of, 121

Nobility: in ancient Egypt, 37; as sequel to
monarchy, 38; monarchy creates, war in-
creases, 50; god-descended heroes of, 51;
of the pen, 52; in ancient Japan, 58; in
France, during reign of Louis XIV, 71, 72

Nomads: original, 24; sense of kinship among,
39; characteristics of, 40, 42; tendency to
dispute, 43, 44; war originated among, 45,
53

Nonconformists, social habits of, 225

Nuer tribe: political institutions ol", 24; of
southern Sudan, 35

Old Testament, 40, 80; Kings I, 37, 47, 48;

Samuel I, 42, 50; Genesis, 43; Exodus, 47;

Deuteronomy, 47; Jeremiah, 49
Oligarchy, 82, 91, 114

Oppenheimer, Professor Franz, Der Staat, 24
Optimates party at Rome, 181
O-igin of Species (Charles Darwin), 153
Orthodoxy in Czarist Russia, 156
Osiris: arrival in Egypt, 28; deified King, 34
Ottoman Sultanate, 132
Owen, Robert, 225

INDEX

325

Page, J. W., From Hunter to Husbandman,

41
Paine, Tom, 201 ; Rights of Man, 201 et

scq.
Palestine, 39, 46
Pant, D., The Commercial Policy of the Moguls,

135
Papacy, 69
Papuans, 20
Pareto, Vilfredo, 283
Paris, 97: University of, 149
Parkinson's Law, lA'i-l^A
Parliament, British, 108
Parliament Act (1911), 228
Parliaments, lessened importance of, 289
Parthenon frieze, horses in, 172
Party System (Hilaire Belloc), 232
Passier, in Sumatra, 35

Pastoralists: monarchy among, 24, 39, 31, 43,
44; best trained for war, 45; leadership
among, 49; conception of kingship among,
53
Peace Ballot, 249

Peake, Harold, 28; Early steps in Human Pro-
gress, 43
Peake, Harold and H. J. Fleure: Priests and
Kings, 31, 36; The Steppe and the Sown, 241
Peloponnesian War, 173
Penrose, L. S., On the objective study of crowd

behaviour, 290
Pericles. 7, 172, 174
Peron, Juan, 257

Perry, W. J.. 20; The Children of the Sun, 30
Persia, 13, 46, 125, 175
Peru: civilization of, 14; Incas of, 33, 36, 37,

38; disorders in, 256
Pharaoh: cult of, 31 ; separately king of Upper
and Lower Egypt, 36; daughter of, 37;
pursuit of Israelites by. 47; Augustus as-
sumes office of, 124
Philip II of Spcin. 80
Phillipines, 30
Phillips, M. M., Erasmus and the [Northern

Renaissance. 79
Phillistines, 47
Phoenicians, 52
Physiocrats, 87

Pilsudski, Marshal, of Poland, 270
Pitt, William, 214

Pitti, G., Life of Benito Mussolini, 271
Pius XI, Pope, praises Mussolini, 266
Plataea, city of, 177

Plato, 8, 12; The Laws, 13; The Republic. 179
Plutarch, 28
Poland, 68, 86, 99
Political science, schools of, 11
Politics, stagnation of, 306
Polybius, WO et seq.
Polynesia, 30
Pontine Marshes, 283

Poole, Reginald Lane, Illustrations of the
History of Medieval Thought and Learnim;,
76, 77
Populares, democratic party at Rome, 181
Prasad, Beni, Theory of Government in Ancient

India, 189
Pratinidhi, 66
Pravda, newspaper, 163
Predestination, Calvin's explanation of, 139

Priesthood, 23, 29 et seq., 53, 64; duties of,

29, 30, 31, 32, 53, 64
Priestley, Joseph, 211
Prime Ministers, British, 215
Primo de Rivera, 270
Prince, The (Machiavelli), 272
Princeps, office held by Caesar Augustus, 187
Private enterprise, decay of, in Britain, 238
Proletarian democracy, G. B. Shaw's opinion

of, 278
Property, 29, 40
Prussia, 89

Psychology, political implications of. 289 el seq.
Ptolemies, 124
Ptolemy of Lucca, 76
Public schools, significance of, 224
Punic Wars, 183
Puritanism, in U.S.A., 192
Purohita, ecclesiastical minister in ancient

India, 63 et seq.

Qassim Ali Jairazbhoy, Muhammad '/I Mercy

to all the Nations' 1 3 1
Quakers, character of, 191
Quesnay, Francois, 87

Railways, Italian, overstaffing of, 266
Rauschning, Herman, Hitler Speaks, 272
Raynal, the Abbe: observations on the Swiss,

204; on the United Slates, 205-206
Red Square, Moscow, Lenin's tomb erected in,

162
Reform Bill (1867), 214
Reformation, 77 et seq., 190
Religion: origins of, 23; political implications

of, 28 et seq.; as factor in monarchy, 58 et

seq.
Religious persecution, 118-150
Representative democracy, 12, 96; Mill's essay

on, 217, 222
Republic (Plato), 179

Republicanism, 86 et seq.. Ill, 102 et seq.
Revenge, as basic instinct, 18
Ricardo, 213
Rig Veda. 32, 33
Rippy, J. F., Historic Evolution of Hispanic

America, 252
Rivers, W. H. R., Instinct and the Unconcious,

289
Robespierre, 9

Robinson, J. H., The Mind in the Making, 18
Rohlfing, C. C, The American Government. 199
Roland, Song of, 98
Rome: city of, 14; civilization of, 14; Papal

inheritance from, 76; Republic of, 85, 102

et seq.; Republican theory of, 110, 111;

Empire of, 124-125; deification of Emperor

at, 34, 181; capture of, by Alaric. 127
Roosevelt, F. D., 162, 229
Rosas, dictator of Argentina, 256
Rostovtzeff, M.. 4 History nf the Ancient

World, 185
Rouen, 150

326

INDEX

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, The Social Contract,

9, 10, 203 et seq.
Runnymede, 98, 117
Rupert, Prince, 240
Ruskin, his influence on Gandhi, 195
Russell, Bertrand, The Practice and Theory oj

Bolshevism, 160
Russia, problem of government, 158
Russian Communism, 156
Russian revolutionaries and Marxism, 156

Sabine, G. H., A History of Political Theory,

96, 212,213
St. Benedict, 95, 96; teachings of, 142 et seq.
St. Augustine: on slavery, 145; on political

authority, 146; on heresy, 417-418
St. Simon, 70
St. Thomas Aquinas, 76; De Regimine Prin-

cipum, 75; Selected Political Writings, 75
Sakai, Malay Aborigines, 21 et seq.
Salazar, dictator of Portugal, 270
Samoa, 30

Samuel, Book of, 32, 36
Samurai, 95
Sanskrit, 66
Santi-parva, 19
Saracens, 48
Sargon of Agade, 45
Sassanian administration, 125
Satya Yuga, 20
Saul, King, 42, 47
Scandinavians, 33

Scheele, G., The Weimar Republic, 267
Schlesinger, Rudolf, The Spirit of Post- War

Russia, 159
Schopenhauer, works of, read by Adolf Hitler,

272
Science: progress of, 155, 306; medieval.

faults of, 307
Semang, 21, 22. 23
Semitic tribes: Nomads, 24. 46, 47, 125;

character of, 126
Senate, Roman. 105, 106
Servile State. The (Hilaire Belloc), 232
Seth, 36
Sethat, 37
Sforza, Count Carlo, European Dictatorships,

270
Shaftesbury, Earl of, 112
Shaikhs, 42

Shakespeare, William, Henry V, 78 et seq.
Shaw, G. B., 230 et sc^?.. '241-242. 279; The

Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, etc.,

35, 278; Man and Superman. 278
Shelburne, Lord, 214
Shih Huang-Ti, 55
Shilluk, 34
Shwayar, 42
Siam, 35, 122
Siberia, 25

Sicily, Athenian disaster in attacking. 177
Smith, Sir Thomas, De Republica Anglorum,

108
Smith, Vincent A., The Early History of India

from 600 ii.c. to the Muhamnuidan Conquest.

123

Snow, Edgar, 163

Social Contract, essays by Locke, Hume,
Rousseau, 213

Social Contract, The (J J. Rousseau), 204

Social Democratic Federation, 226

Social War, ac Rome, 184

Socialism, 188; in Europe, 228

Socialist League, 227

Socialist legislation introduced by Disraeli, 226

Socrates, 169, 285

Sokoto empire, 24

Solomon, King, 36, 37, 47

Solon, Athenian Lawgiver, 8, 39, 172

Somadevi Suri, 65

Sorel, Georges, theories of, 282 et seq.; Re-
flections on Violence, 282

Sorokin, P. A., Social Philosophies of an Age
of Crisis, 260

South America, political problems of, 251 et
seq.

Spain, 68, 80, 99, 125

Spanish Civil War, 249

Sparta, 35, 102, 111

Spartans, humiliation of, 177

Specior, Ivar, An Introduction to Russian
History and Culture, 159

Spengler, Oswald, consulted by Adolf Hitler.
281; The Decline of the West. 260, 289

Spinoza, Benedict, Writings in political philo-
sophy, 310

Stalin, Joseph, 161, 164; on the Russian Con-
stitution of 1936, 159-160; Leninism, 162;
deification of, 163

Stark, W., America, Ideal and Reality, 205

Steppes, 46

Steward, Julian H., Handbook of South Ameri-
can Indians, 37

Stoic philosophy, 125

Suarez, the Jesuit, 191

Subjection of Women, The (J. S. Mill). 217

Sudan, 35

Sudra, 64

Suger, 69

Sulla, Roman Consul, 184

Sumatra, 35, 122

Sumeria, 14, 31, 45, 51

Sun God, 23, 29 et seq., 37, 69, 124

Superman, doctrine of, 272

Supreme Court (United States), function of,
201

Sutralankara, 62

Sweden, 35

Switzerland, 82

SybU, or the Two Nations, Benjamin Disraeli,
214

Syme, R., The Roman Revolution. 185

Syndicalists, 242

Syria, 28, 46, 52,93, 125

Taboo, 18
Tallensi, 24

T'ang Dynasty, 55, 57, 298
Tawney, R. H., Equality, 230
Taxation, 51, 115

Taylor, L. R., The Divinity of the Roman
Emperor, 186, 187

INDtX

327

Taylor, T. M., A Constitutional ami Political

History of Rome, 182 et seq.
Theocracy, 59, 82, 121, 122
Theodosius, Emperor, 125
Thomas, F. W., Cambridge Modern History,

67
Thomson, David, Eqiialily, 230
Thothmes 111, 46
Tiberias, city of, 93

Tiberius Gracchus, Roman pohtician, 181
Tibet, 46, 122
Timor, 30

Trade Depression (1877-78), 226
Trafalgar Square Riots, 227
Treason trials, psychology of, 291
Trebizond, 93
Trevelyan, Dr. G. M., 276
Trevor-Roper, H. R., Hitler's Table Talk, 212.

281
Trianon, 72
Tribal customs: primitive, 10, 21, 23, 26;

African, 24, 38; among nomad peoples, 40

et seq.; Bedouin, 49; Indian, 58
Tripolis, 93

Tristan, admired by Adolf Hitler, 280
Tristram, Canon, In the Sahara, 41
Ts'in (Ch'in), 54, 55
Turkestan. 41

Uganda, 34

Umayyads, 131, 132, 133

United States of America : ideals of, 8, 206 et
seq.; independence of, 199, 205; constitu-
tion of, 200; freedom upheld in, 208;
Socialist influence in, 229

Universities, 97

University of Paris, 148, 150

Usanas, military formation laid down by, 64

Userkaf, high priest, 31

U.S.S.R., constitution of, 159

Utilitarian principle, 211

Utopia (Thomas More), 79

Utopian ideas, 9, 319; element in Marxism,
159

Village, origin of, 28-29

Viollet, Paul, 69

Vittorio Veneto, Battle of, 263

Voltaire: Philosophical Dictionary, 87; views

on politics, 87-88; comment on England by,

107

Wagner, Cosima, 281

Wagner, Richard, influence of, 280

Wagner, Siegfried, 281

Wales, Marches of, 99

Walpole, Sir Robert, 107

War: origins of, 44-45; early examples of,
46-49; implications of, 49-52; medieval,
93-95; Wars of the Roses. 107; Seven Years
War, 109; developments in art of, 288

War of Independence, the American, 192

Warde, Fowler, W., The City-State of the Greeks
and Romans, 171

Washington Conference, 245

Webb, Beatrice, on Lenin, 160, 162

Webb, Sidney: on Lenin, 160, 162; not ad-
mired by Georges Sorel, 282

Weimar Republic, 267

Welfare State, 244

Wei's, H. G., 227, 278

Welsh Marches, 99

Westphalen, Jenny von, wife of Karl Marx,
151

Wilhelm, Richard, A Short History of Chinese
Civilization, 55

Wilkinson, R. J., Papers on Malay Subjects:
the Aboriginal Tribes, 21-22

William of Orange, 109, 112

Wilson, Woodrow, 229; as President of
U.S.A., 239

Winstanley, 17th century extremist, 192

Wirszubski, Ch., Libertas as a political idea
at Rome during the late Republic and early
Principate, 181

Wolfe, H. I. (ed.), Voltaire's Philosophical
Dictionary, 87

Wren, Sir Christopher, 285

Wu Ti, 55

Wyndham Lewis, The Art of being Ruled, 272

Vaisali, Indian city, 168, 169

Vanaparva, 19

Vauban, Sebastian, 286

Vedic period, 58, 59, 62

Venezuela, independence of, 253, 256

Venice, 96, 111

Venizelos, Eleutherios, dictator of Greece, 270

Venkateswara, S. V., Indian Culture through

the Ages, 168
Versailles, palace of, 69-73
Vikings, 33

Yamato, Great (Japan), 31, 57
Yuvaraja, heir apparent under Indian Mon-
archy, 66

ZiMMERN, A., The Greek Commonwealth, 173

et seq.
Zimonis, status of, 134
Zulus: political institutions of, 24; kingship

among, 38

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